The BBC is preparing to stream more than 650 hours of coverage from this year's Winter Olympics for free, the first major test for the British media company's new digital products catered to live events.

The event will be covered with six high-definition streams of live events, plus two television channels of coverage, according to an announcement from the BBC. The coverage will be available on tablets and mobile devices through the BBC Sport app.

See also: How to Watch and Follow the Sochi Winter Olympics Online

The Sochi Winter Olympics kick off on Feb. 7. The BBC purchased rights to the Olympics through 2020, and previously streamed the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Neil Hall, product manager of BBC Sport, told Mashable in an email: “This new approach to digital live event coverage has its roots firmly in the success of our 2012 Olympics proposition. The London games provided us with both a strong technical legacy and a terrific amount of audience data and insight into how people used our unique coverage to help us shape this new proposition across screens.

The BBC has combined all its offerings — live video streams, Radio 5 live coverage, statistics and digital journalism — into one place, allowing viewers to choose content without switching between platforms, sites or apps.

Unfortunately for viewers in the United States, BBC streaming is only available to residents of the UK. NBC, which owns the digital streaming rights in the U.S., will be streaming 1,000 hours of coverage of the Olympics at NBCOlympics.com. However, a cable subscription is necessary to access all of NBC's streaming content.

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