Here is a list of the places online where lovers of the Games will be able to catch all of the action. Some are legal, while others may be frowned upon, but all are legitimate ways of seeing the Olympics online.

Official Coverage

NBC Olympics

American residents will be able to watch over 2,200 hours of coverage live on NBCOlympics.com.

The success of the coverage will be used as a yardstick to see whether the Web is a legitimate location for hosting coverage of events such as this.

However, with severe restrictions it is alienating a larger potential audience.

BBC Olympic Coverage

The the BBC’s Olympic coverage looks like the best deal with fair and wide coverage of the events. Unfortunately it is only available within the UK.

TVTonic

TVTonic’s service allows US residents to watch Olympic events in full, even after broadcast and while you’re offline. However, the service isn’t recommended for users of metered Broadband Internet.

Proxy

While the coverage of the above services may be locked to a specific country, anyone overseas can get around this fact by use of a proxy server based in right country.

Essentially this makes it appear as if you are accessing the coverage from the correct country. However, with proxy servers being quite unreliable and slow it is unlikely you’ll be able to watch anything without jitters.

YouTube & Live Streaming Video Sites

YouTube has a dedicated Olympics channel, but it will only be viewable by people resident in the 77 countries where the IOC failed to make exclusive Web deals. Using a proxy server can again get around this obstacle.

There is also likely to be a multitude of amateur footage finding its way on to live streaming video sites like Ustream, Stickam, and Justin.tv.

Live Olympic Streaming

Using uStream the Olympic Games are being streamed online live. The quality is not brilliant and it can be a bit stuttery but its better than nothing.

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High Quality Olympics Stream

Just came across this high quality stream. Clicking this link should open up the stream in your default video player.

P2P Streaming

P2P streaming is huge in China, and PPLive is officially licensed to show the Olympics in China. A Chinese-based proxy server may help, or alternatively, PPStream, PPMate, Sopcast, TVUPlayer, and TVKoo may be worth trying.

Personally out of all of those I recommend TVUPlayer as it is the easiest to use.

Torrents

Last but not least are torrent sites, with the big Olympic moments likely to turn up in force on the high-profile sites such as The Pirate Bay, and Mininova.

However, since you have to download the content first using torrents then you won’t be able to get any live coverage this way, but it will be great for recapturing classic moments from the Olympics

An alternative to torrents is the easy-to-use video downloading program Graboid which provides access to hundreds of thousands of videos and will no doubt have a lot of Olympic coverage.

TiVo and DVRs

The Olympics TV schedule can’t rule your life and by using TiVo or your preferred DVR you can record all the events to watch at a later date. A relatively simple solution which allows you to easily watch the Olympics on your regular TV set.

Whichever means you choose to watch the Olympics online from Beijing, it’s clear that the Web is now a serious player in delivering footage of such a huge event to the masses.

On a separate not why not check out the hottest girls of the Olympics.

It’s no question that illegally downloading music (as well as other forms of media) is one of the greatest issues that the 21st century has brought on. In this funny Public Service Announcement, Kid Rock proposes a new idea…

“Level the playing field…steal everything!“

While this PSA is certainly worth a few chuckles, I must say his message (which is masked by sarcasm) contains some very flawed logic. First of all, when people illegally download music, they aren’t “stealing” at all, but rather copying. The file that it’s copied from remains intact.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks “stealing” a song is completely different from stealing a car. When someone downloads a song, there is no inventory lost. Let’s not forget that the experience of listening to music has never been tangible and that record companies have had years to prepare for this.

All this video does is bring us back to where we were in 2001. Coincidentally, that also happens to be the last time that Kid Rock was popular.

How many times have you tried to view that “perfectly legal” video on YouTube only to encounter: “This video has been removed at the request of [insert evil company name here] because its content was used without permission”?

Have no fear, Delutube is here! “The Deleted YouTube Video Viewer”.

There’s no doubt that the TV industry has been shaken up by the writers’ strike. And Viacom’s newest move is a mirror image of that effect. Next year, Comedy Central will be making each of the 167 full episodes (from series 1 to series 11) of South Park to be streamed online for free…

For Free!!!

While many are speculating that it is going to take the form of a YouTube style site that will be packed with illegal videos I don’t think that will be the case.

If you are not that technical with computers then you might want to skip to the next article right now. Sopcast is an underground P2P internet TV player that allows you to access a variety of regular TV channels from around the world, much like the controversial TVUPlayer.

Here is a sweet little plugin/hack that allows you to watch the streaming TV content on your living room TV using the Xbox Media Center (or other media extenders/PCs) over a home network.

Below is a list of South Park Series 10 episodes which you can watch right now online for free.

You can make these videos full screen usuaully by clicking on the video image as it plays or clicking a zoom button (if it’s there). This will make it fit your full browser window, to make it even bigger press F11 which will make the South Park video take up even more of your screen.

He claims that piracy results in actors losing out on money which results in actors losing their inspiration, which in turn leads to the end of movies, music and other entertainment as we know it.

Well just in case you were worried that piracy was emptying the pockets of actors and music artists then take a look at what Jack Black was paid for some of his recent successful movies, obviously this wasn’t enough:

Channels featured on TVUPlayer currently include CBS, ESPN, NBA TV, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Comedy Central, Disney and more, including sports channels.

This already impressive lineup of channels is available from any internet enabled PC in the world and could potentially expand to include many more channels.

It is my understanding the system works where one person records live TV and streams it to the internet. This stream is then redistributed by other people who are watching the channel.