The 2008 Olympics are due to start in Beijing in seven days, five hours, and change, but the reporting and blogging surrounding the most digital of all Olympics is well underway.

Read on to learn more about youth and the digital Olympics and the possibility the Internet will break when billions of people worldwide access the Web to stream video and static content.

In just the past few days there have been announcements regarding schedules, video players, compatibility issues, even behind-the-scene looks at what it will take to produce 2,000 hours of live content for television consumption and 5,000 hours of streaming content for the Web.

If you start now, you just might finish in time for the start of the games on 08-08-08.

Using digital to appeal to youth

Reuters detailed the impact of the digital revolution on the 2008 Olympics, drawing the conclusion that streaming events and highlights over the Internet will attract younger viewers, who are not expected to watch the events live. The average age of people watching the 2004 Games in Athens was more than 40 years old, a statistic that’s not expected to change for the Beijing Games.

We realize talk about measuring audiences on television or the Web can get pretty dull. But there is something that intrigues us about NBC’s “billion-dollar lab” beyond the sheer size of the effort.

That “billion-dollar lab,” as NBC calls the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, will provide unprecedented insight into how people are using traditional media — television — and new media — the Internet.

NBC, the sole broadcaster, will mine 3,600 total hours of coverage from its network, along with NBC-owned properties Telemundo, USA, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC, and Bravo. The company is also planning to make 2,200 hours of streaming video available on NBCOlympics.com. Consumers also will get video-on-demand to their computers and content through their mobile phones.

“The billion-dollar lab is an extraordinary research opportunity,” said Alan Wurtzel, NBC’s research chief.

“I have no idea how people are going to use the Internet on the Olympics,” Wurtzel said [via New York Times].

It seemed so promising: NBC, the sole U.S. broadcaster for the 2008 Summer Olympics Games in Beijing, will allow consumers to download any event to watch on their personal computers for free.

That’s any event.

On their personal computers.

For free.

Then reality sets in and you discover it’s too good to be true. “NBC Olympics on the Go” will only be available for the Microsoft Vista operating system and then in just two flavors — Home Premium and Ultimate. This means millions of XP users, not to mention Mac and Linux folks, will be left on the sideline, so to speak.

These Olympic Games are going to be the most ambitious single media project in history, with NBC saturating the airwaves and Internet cloud with 3,600 hours of coverage from Aug. 8-24.