But as Internet users reaffirmed on Friday, some viewers are already willing to find some other source and watch what they want, when they want.

As dancers and acrobats whisked across the National Stadium in Beijing, anonymous users uploaded more than 100 video clips of the ceremony to YouTube, but the site, owned by Google, swiftly removed as many as it could. Similarly, some live video streams on Justin.tv, a popular source for international video, were also removed. According to International Olympic Committee guidelines, the television networks with the local rights to the Games are the only legal sources of video in each country.

But the media companies were almost always a step behind users who have a seemingly unlimited number of Web sites, especially when bloggers were sharing links to new sources. In Rhode Island, Aida Neary and a colleague huddled at her desk to watch a Brazilian television channel’s live coverage.

“It wasn’t the best quality,” Ms. Neary said of the video feed, “and I’m sure it will be better on TV, but to watch that flame go up at the same time as the rest of the world was a beautiful, moving thing.”

Most of the world’s other broadcasters with rights to the Olympics, including CBC in Canada, Televisa in Mexico, the BBC in Britain and NHK in Japan, broadcast the opening ceremonies live on television. “The idea of watching a 14-hour delay is repulsive,” remarked Tracy Record, a blogger in Seattle, who woke up at 5 a.m. to watch the opening ceremonies with her 12-year-old son on CBC.

Around the same time, American television viewers were treated to a taste on NBC’s “Today” show and regular programming on NBC’s cable sisters, MSNBC and CNBC. Parts of “Today” were taped hours in advance because Matt Lauer, who serves as co-host of the morning show, was due at the stadium to anchor the opening ceremonies with Bob Costas.

Gary Zenkel, the president of NBC Olympics, said in a statement: “We have a billion dollars worth of revenue at stake here, so that means we’re not public television, for better or worse.”