NBC promises much technical wow for Olympics coverage

How big a deal is next month's 2016 Rio Olympics?

"Countries at war are saying they'll stop their battles to focus on the games," said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts in a media event at JFK Boulevard headquarters Wednesday.

The Summer Games also promise content and customizable technology as never seen in TV land before, Roberts said, as well as an audience for Comcast's NBCUniversal properties that is "more than three times bigger than ABC, CBS, and Fox ratings combined" over the Rio games' 17-day run, plus two preview nights.

To get all the flash of new features, you'll need the Xfinity X1 set-top box and platform, which has penetrated "more than 40 percent" of Comcast Xfinity's 22 million pay TV homes.

With Rio just an hour ahead of U.S. Eastern time, NBC's 11 networks will be serving up 2,084 hours of "linear" content, almost four times the 539 hours from Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

Come hell or the smelly waters of Rio's Guanabara Bay, the sports spectacular will claim most day and night programing time for broadcast networks NBC and Telemundo, plus cable channels Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC Sports Network, NBC Universo, and USA Network, as well as specialty basketball and soccer channels and the Golf Channel - marking the sport's first appearance at the Olympics in a mere 112 years.

For utter completists, 40 more streaming channels available on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app will pile on yet another 4,500 unduplicated hours of Olympic competition, tapping into fringe-appeal events as well as the most popular sports like swimming, gymnastics, track and field, diving, volleyball, and basketball.

"We'll have cameras fixed on single events - from weightlifting to rugby, water polo to table tennis. So if you're into that sport, you can watch every moment, see every participant," said Comcast's chief product officer Chris Satchell.

And getting there should be easy thanks to the "smart" X1 voice remote and cloud-based search engine - which Satchell said will pull down streamed content just as easily as linear channels "for the first time ever."

That also points to Comcast Xfinity's content-mashing future and tech advantage over rival cable/satellite TV services, Roberts said.

The X1 search engine has already been imbued with more than 1500 "new unique voice recognition commands" to help fans track athletes by name, sport, event, and country. Many search terms have also been fine-tuned to respond to Spanish accented and language speakers, noted Comcast general manager of multicultural services Javier Garcia.

Multimedia profiles of "more than 300 top Olympic athletes" have likewise been stockpiled for instant call-up on the user interactive side of an X1 web-connected screen. And the search engine will "update itself constantly, adding information in real time to track team, nation and individual rankings," said Satchell.

To tap teens and millennials where they hang (not so often in front of a TV screen), Comcast has hooked up with BuzzFeed (Comcast owns a chunk) and Snapchat to gather and spread extra info about the participants, "what happened before and after their events," said Roberts.

That could be "what Michael Phelps ate after a swim, how many calories he consumed. And, while they're reading that on their phones, looking at pictures, we'll give them a link to the NBC Sports app, where they could actually see the athlete competing."

User tracking information and increasingly customizable advertising will help pay the bills, Roberts said. Ad-wise, despite concerns from the Zika virus to chronic political instability, "we've already sold out every availability - much earlier than at previous Olympics."

Cutting edge techies also will be feeling their oats. Some Rio Olympics content will be offered in 4K ultra-high-definition form, most produced by Olympic Broadcasting Services and Japan's NHK except for opening ceremonies night, featuring NBCUniversal's own "4K feed with HDR" (high dynamic range) and Dolby Atmos immersive audio, said Satchell.

Another Rio Olympics tech first: 85 hours of Virtual Reality (VR) coverage, including the opening and closing ceremonies, and highlights of men's basketball, gymnastics, track and field, beach volleyball, diving, boxing, and fencing.

To dive into a 360-degree viewing experience, you'll need a compatible Samsung Galaxy smartphone, Gear VR glasses, and a pay TV provider's subscriber password (doesn't have to be Comcast Xfinity).

Roberts wasn't up to speed on the details, but noted that "Comcast Ventures has been making significant investments in VR." And he believes the ability of VR to make sports and concert viewers "feel like they are there" makes VR a tech "that makes a lot of sense."

takiffj@phillynews.com

215-854-5960@JTakiff