What ha happened...?

MLB.tv began its post-season broadcast with tonight’s one-game playoff between the Twins and Tigers and it featured the nifty multi-angle broadcast layout we saw during the all-star game.

The draw is in the ability for you to click on up to 10 different camera angles from across the stadium (or four simultaneously), and at first it seems like a cool way to watch the game. However, after a while, or after settling down in front of your laptop (some of us don’t have a TV hooked up), the whole thing turns the experience into a cumbersome mess.

Zoom zoom

Because you’re fixed on one camera angle, you’ll have to imagine what happens on the field when the ball is in play, if say you’re watching the center field camera (see top screen-grab). It doesn’t shift to a different angle that follows the action as you’ve been trained by a professionally-produced broadcast.

Also, you’ll have to endure the zoom adjustments done by the camera operator (remember, you’re stuck on his/her view), meaning you’ll get taken for quite a ride if you’re on the high home plate camera, which zooms in as the player hits a ball in play, and then back out once the play is dead.

Although the announcers could be heard on a few camera angles during the All-Star game, I actually heard both dudes during last night’s game on all angles, but I get the impression that sound is also fixed. Crowd noise is more pronounced, even causing the speakers to “pop” when it climbs above the 0 db level, which makes me think that you’re also locked into the camera’s microphone.

Again, I think it’s a cool way to watch the game for a few innings, and MLBAM itself is calling the service (dubbed Postseason.tv) as a “complementary” broadcast if you’ve got the game on your TV, but they should also offer users a choice for a single stream that emulates the main broadcast.

If you’re a regular subscriber to MLB.tv, you can simply login using your credentials. Otherwise you can pay $9.95 for the Postseason.tv online package.

IPhone or iPoud Touch users who have the At Bat application can also choose among the different camera angles, or watch four simultaneous feeds.

So I get home just in time to tune in to the first inning of the All-Star game (in progress) and since I don’t have a working TV, I log on to MLB.tv. To my surprise, the broadcast is not the same TV broadcast (as was the case for the Home Run Derby last night), but instead, is a direct feed from nine different camera angles around the new Busch Stadium. Freaking cool!

The video player is very similar to the MLB.tv player, and it gives you the option to watch anywhere from one camera to four simultaneously. Switching between them is as easy as clicking on the grid, then clicking on the new angle available as a list or placed geographically on a graphic of the ball park.

I was asked for my MLB.com account login info, not my MLB.tv, but in my case, they happen to be the same. Not sure if non-MLB.tv subscribers can watch it gratis, tho. Also, I hadn’t heard of this at all, I did some googling to try and figure when/if it had been announced, and the only thing I could find was a press release for a similar broadcast Fox Interactive did for the BCS.

And the best part? No broadcasters! Just pure unfiltered stadium ambience sounds. Beautiful! Darn. The first three camera angles (X-MO Low Home, High Homeplate, and Centerfield) do have the Fox broadcast audio.

(The main Fox online broadcast itself is blacked out, but is available through MLB.tv, as is Game Day audio).

I’m sorry, but I have to say this is freaking awesome. I take most of it back Bud, Robert, you too Donald, who’s a good new media goonie? who’s it, who’s it? yes you.

Has anyone noticed how much ESPN.com, especially their “MLB” page, sucks over the weekend? Maybe not, since the time when most people most obsessively check the internet is during the week, when they are at work and supposed to be doing other things.

But now that I am living in Japan, where due to timezone differences my weekend hardly overlaps with the US weekend, I really notice it. The front page hardly gets updated. Web gems don’t get posted at all. Don’t even think about new columns or blog posts. And breaking news stories and trades sometimes don’t get posted until as late as an hour or two after they are covered elsewhere.

All of which is in contrast to the workweek, when ESPN is pretty on top of things. Overall, the feeling is of a web enterprise that only has a couple people in the building on weekends.

In this day and age of the 24-hour news cycle, blogs, and viewers around the world, it really makes no sense for a website as prominent as ESPN.com to all but shut down over the weekend.

It’s cute and all when some sort of mega-news goes down over the weekend and a video gets posted wherein Buster Olney looks like he just got out of bed, but if a site like mlbtraderumors.com can afford to hire people to cover the weekends, ESPN should too.

Come hither...

When Apple announced the new iteration of it’s venerable cash cow, the iPhone 3GS, it did so emphasizing the speed of the device, capable of delivering faster web pages, loading applications in a snap, and, at least in the future, capable of utilizing AT&T’s faster mobile internet network.

Another feature that will no doubt take advantage of the upgraded horsepower will be streaming video, and because we know these MLB New Media Goons are ahead of the technology curve, Apple promptly partnered with MLB Advanced Media to showcase the live video delivery capabilities of the ubiquitous machine with its latest version of the MLB At Bat iPhone application.

And to complete this delicious new media menage a trois, AT&T gave MLBAM the exclusive right to stream live video via its 3G cellular network, a right previously denied to applications such as Skype and Slingplayer (remember them?).

This is where it gets hairy. It’s no secret that Apple’s extremely restrictive application approval process has been contradictory in giving the green light to certain kinds of applications while rejecting other, very similar ones. But now that AT&T is wanting to play VIP with MLBAM, it raises another set of questions.

AT&T denied Slingplayer access to its 3G network for video streaming saying it would clog up its 3G network, so why give the MLB New Media Goons the full spread?

From CNET:

But now AT&T is allowing MLB to do exactly what it would not allow Sling to do, which is stream live broadcast TV over its 3G cellular network onto iPhones. So what gives? Is AT&T playing favorites?

That’s exactly what Ben Scott, policy director for the advocacy group Free Press, thinks. The group issued a statement Thursday expressing its concern over what it sees as an inconsistent policy.

“We are troubled that carriers like AT&T are playing gatekeeper to the next generation of wireless Internet applications,” Scott said in a statement. “No Internet service provider should be allowed to pick winners and losers online.”

Two things: First, Net Neutrality

Up until this point, the Net Neutrality battle (remember kids, same Internet for all) was being fought on the Cable companies’ turf, in which Big Cable’s bandwidth cap threats could’ve impacted MLB’s own broadband hog, MLB.tv, but AT&T’s contradictory policy towards the MLB At Bat application seems to indicate that it will also have to be addressed on the mobile web.

(An interesting side note, MLB Advanced Media has been a busy little new media whore. Just a few days ago, Boxee, the media center that allows you to hook up your computer to your HDTV and watch TV shows and movies, announced that the alpha version of its software will give MLB.tv subscribers a way to watch games through Boxee on their TVs.)

Second (and here’s my conspiracy angle)

It’s quite curious to note that the kid not invited to the party is Sling Media, the maker of the Slingplayer application for the iPhone.  If you all remember, MLB has once before targeted Sling, which allows you to setup a box at home, and stream your cable or satellite service (or your shiny new public digital TV signal) over the internet to your laptop or mobile phone. Yes, you can stream your Sling connection to your iPhone, but it has to be done through a Wi-Fi connection (which necessitates a hot spot and not AT&T’s much wider 3G network).

Of course, MLB is not getting the double dip in broadcast rights once you stream the home team’s game when you’re away from home. And so you see, in my humble opinion at least, Bud Selig and his New Media Goons are getting AT&T to give them the 3G buffet while at the same time, Mamma Bell kicks Sling Media to the curve.

Full circle

Remember who bought Sling Media? Echo Star, the parent company for Dish Network, which never got a piece of the MLB Extra Innings pie.

Conclusion?

Clearly MLB Advanced Media is spreading its tentacles to as many areas of technology as it can. That is a good thing. But there seem to be some shady shenanigans going on behind the scenes. And what I don’t like is the fact that we have to keep paying an arm and a leg just to watch some baseball.

At the begining of the season, I was pleasantly surprised when MLB’s Advanced Media division revealed this year’s version of its live game streaming service, MLB.TV. My initial review was mostly positive for a job well done in making huge (yes, huge) improvements over last year’s service.

Given the nature of the web, and how these streaming services depend on multiple parts to work smoothly (servers, software, bandwidth, browser support, operating systems, users, etc), it was natural to expect MLB.tv to have a few glitches here and there.

Now that we’re well into the season however, issues remain front and center. Users flooded the then-support blog with issues regarding the actual quality of the video delivered, forcing MLBAM to convert the thing into a full blown support forum (with threads and all).

This can only speak to the severity and widespread nature of the issues experienced by users, and cannot be brushed away as isolated cases dependent on bandwidth or browser issues as I originally thought.

I myself have encountered glitches, where for instance, the NextDef stream would suddenly drop to standard definition during the sixth inning of a game, presumably, due to a high demand for streams. Other Umpbump MLB.tv subscribers have had the same problem.

But the latest issue, highlighted by one of our trusty readers, GP, reeks of MLB New Media Goonness. As Maury Broun of the BizofBaseball.com explains:

Those with MLB.com’s online streaming package, MLB.TV Premium found out last week that being able to access games that had just been played via MLB.TV’s archive function were no longer made available  45 min. after a game has ended, but without advance notification to subscribers, was bumped up to 90 min. – twice the waiting period.

The delay was not part of a technical issue, but rather, according to feedback from MLB.com support, a new policy instituted by MLB Advanced Media through MLB.com based on pressure from television networks.

This is the thread in question, and you only have to read the first reply by an MLB moderator to catch a whiff of contempt emanating from MLBAM. This is the post that is causing frustration with users, where the reasoning for such a sudden and crucial change to one of the selling points of the service is given in a very matter-of-fact, almost in-passing manner (the new policy is indeed buried in the fine print of the mlb.tv portal).

It’s a shame; I’d built up way too many high expectations for this thing based solely on the technological promise, but failed to recognize that these are the very same New Media Goons that tried to stab their fans in the back with that DirecTV exclusive deal.

One last thing. For the love of god, when I type mlb.tv in my browser (that is the point of the short URL, right?!?!), give me a list of all the bloody games going on, not a price-breakdown of the service. I already subscribe to the damn thing!

And don’t give me shit about the text link to the media center at the top, figure out a way to make it real freakin’ portal, not a billboard.

There’s been lots of frowning and brow-furrowing so far this season about the rate at which homers have been sailing out of the yard at the new Yankee Stadium, but the sooner we can all just accept it, the sooner we can move on with life and the enjoying of baseball.  Because a stadium that already cost over $1 billion is certainly not about to be significantly rebuilt.

Which is why it is so refreshing to see the approach that MLB.com is taking to the whole affair (as self-serving as it may be), with their unveiling this past week of the video series “Yankee Stadium Home Run Watch,” in which a video is posted each day showing each of the homers hit that day at Yankee Stadium and then providing a summary of the home run pace the stadium is on so far this year and comparing it to the pace needed to break the single-season single-venue homer record of 303 bombs, set by Coors Field in 1999.

Watching the videos actually makes the viewer start to feel excited by all the homers at Yankee Stadium, and to root for it to smash the old record. Which is how it should be, because baseball is supposed to be fun.

I have a post up today over at HarvardBusiness.org on the PR disaster that is the New Yankee Stadium. Mostly, I just had fun pointing out all their customer-facing mistakes, but I’m curious: if we were being proactive and constructive (instead of snarktastic) is there anything the Yankees could do at this point to appease their fed-up fanbase? (I mean, aside from beating the Red Sox, which I’m sure they will do…eventually.) What should they do?

For all the bile and hatred Bud Selig and his New Media Goons invoked a few years ago with their DirecTV exclusive deal, you’ve got to give them credit for turning things around and winning me over with this year’s incarnation of MLB.TV.

This productivity killer app, created by the Advance Media arm of MLB, has come a long way since its first inception, and for 2009, there are vast improvements over last year’s not-half-bad service.

One of the major differences is the adoption of Adobe’s Flash technology over Microsoft’s Silverlight (which was used last year). It’s rumored that delivery glitches and installation issues are mainly what prompted baseball’s new media goons to make the switch, and it’s a no brainer. (It also sparked a war of words of sorts between MLBAM and Microsoft).

Although impressive, Silverlight was a newcomer to the web interactivity platforms (explaining the glitches), while Adobe’s Flash engine is by far the industry standard. A true cross-operating system, cross-browser, platform, Flash will no doubt continue to be adopted by more and more devices as they become available (read: smart phones, netbooks, and other portable gizmos).

The delivery is far more fluid than last year, and even though the fancy transitions from one screen to the next remain, they feel even more seamless. One major improvement this year is the focus on the game you’re currently watching, as the actual video screen rarely shrinks when you prompt for various in-game menus like box scores, tracker, highlights, etc.

You also get a toolbar of sorts that reveals itself when you hover near the bottom-middle area of your window (I tested using FireFox on an Intel Mac).

Another major difference this year is the emphasis on the quality of the video (which, alas, is only available with the premium, more expensive package). Last year’s service was decent, but even though they promised “TV-quality” streams at a whopping 1.2 MB a second, the quality wasn’t there yet.

It is now. The screen looks crisp, colors are vivid, pixels are almost (almost) non-existent. The improvement is due to this year’s iteration of what MLB (along with their friends at Swarmcast) like to call “NexDef,” a “smart” video delivery system that adjusts to your bandwidth while maintaining video quality in real time.

There is also a “video quality” meter that reveals just how good of a stream your crappy internet connection is preventing you from watching.

The added video quality makes watching multiple games a better experience than in year’s past. A few years ago I decided to try that disastrous MLB.TV Mosaic Windows program and I gave up on it a few minutes after it didn’t load. The new set up is simple and elegant. You get four options on the bar directly above your video screen from where you can chose whether to watch two games (p-in-p style, or side-by-side), or watch four streams in a square grid. Selecting which games you watch is as easy as clicking on the new squares and then clicking on the available games from the menu on the right.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention another new feature: DVR. Personally I haven’t used many DVR (digital video recorders) in the past, and have marginal experience with them, so I haven’t tested this feature too much. I did play around with “rewinding” but it took a few seconds for the stream to play back so I gave up.

I do see myself pausing and rewinding in the event of a nifty play or a big-time home run.

Overall I would give this year’s MLB.TV a 9 out of 10; there are still some technical issues that prop up every now and then, but the software feels and looks great. Let’s not forget that GameDay Audio is included in the regular and the premium packages (which you’ll need when the FOX Saturday restrictions kick-in – FU FOX). Also, MLB.COM set up a blog dedicated to news and updates about the service, offering a chance for fans to deride or praise these new media goons. Oh right, and it’s $10 bucks cheaper than last year’s price, so from now on I’ll use that term loosely.

» MLB.TV Premium is $109.95 for the year/$19.95 monthly, while MLB.TV regular is $75.95 for the year/$14.95 monthly