In the United States, NBC Universal is making an all out effort to provide extensive coverage of all the sports in the Summer Olympics available for viewing on and offline. What used to be a few hours a day on each of their television networks (NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA) has turned into hundreds of hours.

This year nbcolympics.com covers many of the sports, many available in high-definition. Their Picture-in-Picture viewer allows you to watch four different videos at the same time. This is great as the extensive amount of video being offered can cause some to become overloaded with all the offerings.

The on-demand accessibility means that you can watch shows at any time after they broadcast on television or as they happen. No need to wait around for the coverage or fast-forwards hours of other sports. Those on the west coast can feel as if they’re part of the action and not viewing stale competitions.

The fifthteen second commercials are well worth the wait to watch coverage that doesn’t include any additional ads. Watching the video requires Microsoft’s Silverlight, a quick download. Firefox has no issues with Silverlight, and makes watching the videos easy in either browser.

With the extensive coverage comes some disadvantages. There is so much video that you come to expect your favorite sport to be already available. For some competitions that will occur later this week or next, the wait becomes painful. If your favorite competitions are available, finding the time to watch is another issue. With so many sports and videos that look interesting, you may find yourself addicted to more sports than you have time for. Perhaps that’s why there is a Picture-in-Picture feature.

The website doesn’t just provide competition video. If you missed the opening ceremony, don’t fret. You can watch parts of the ceremony online. If you’re interested in knowing more about a particular team, there are extras that are used as filler in primetime.