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.

There are a lot of brilliant moments in the movie The 40-year-old Virgin,” but the moment where Paul Rudd’s character works up the nerve to ask his boss to play a different DVD in the electronics store where they work is one of my favorites.

David: Hey, Paula.
Paula: Yeah?
David: I gotta tell you something. I’m really excited about it. Uh, for the first time today, I woke up, I came to the store, and I feel confident to say to you that if you don’t take this Michael McDonald DVD that you’ve been playing for two years straight off, I’m going to kill everyone in the store and put a bullet in my brain.
Paula: David, what do you suggest we play?
David: I don’t care. Anything. I would rather… I would rather watch “Beautician and the Beast”. I would rather listen to Fran Drescher for eight hours than have to listen to Michael McDonald. Nothing against him, but if I hear “Yah Mo B There” one more time, I’m going to “Yah Mo” burn this place to the ground.

That scene perfectly sums up the way I feel about the Geico commercials that I’m forced to watch in between every inning of every game on MLB.tv. There are a couple of different Geico spots, but they all feature the stupid cavemen and they’re all set to a 3 Doors Down song called “Let Me Be Myself.” And if I didn’t think 3 Doors Down sucked before, I surely do now. The generic lyircs. (”Please, would you one time / Let me be myself / So I can shine with my own light / Let me be myself”). The overproduced sound. I dread the end of each inning. I rush to the computer to hit the mute button. Please, MLB.tv, get rid of those cavemen commericals! Or at least, play them less frequently. I’m begging you.

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.

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

That sharp pain you feel in your back isn’t a piece of maple bat wedge in between your ribs, it’s Big Cable’s hunting knife half way in your spinal chord. And trust me, they’re about to twist it some more.

Thanks to a leaked memo, we learned back in January that Time Warner was considering instituting some kind of trial run, capping the amount of web traffic a consumer of their broadband service could get under the traditional price scheme.

That program is now a reality, as the good folks of Beaumont, Texas will be allowed a 40GB max on their $55-a-month broadband plan; with every additional GB costing a buck.

I know I don’t need to spell out why this is relevant to any one of you out there. But for the sake of redundancy, let’s go through it, one more time. This time, we’ll do the math:

• Time Warner (and don’t let the fact that it’s just them fool you, it’s Big Cable in general) wants to control the amount of bandwidth people consume via their broadband connections.
• They claim that a few bandwith hogs out there are consuming as much as half of local traffic in some areas. A claim that, of course, only they could corroborate. Good luck trying to get those traffic logs.
• As little as a year and a half ago, Cable was whining about the fact that MLB Advance Media would be moving its MLB Extra Innings service exclusively to DirecTV. Congress got involved, MLB opened the deal, and Cable was allowed to buy into it, keeping the Extra Innings service (poor old Dish was left out in the cold).
• As an alternative to the TV package however, MLB Advance Media was hawking its mlb.tv service, one that resides online and makes excellent use of the “unlimited” bandwidth those of use who get broadband internet enjoy.
• This year, mlb.tv began offering a “tv-quality” stream for games, which downloads at 1.2 MB per second. An average baseball game lasts about 3 hours, so that would be 180 minutes, equaling 10,800 seconds.
• That times 1.2MB, equals about 1,296 MB, so if we’re watching those fancy streams (like, say, I do), then we’d be downloading about 1.3 GB per game (1,000 MB in a gigabyte, and don’t forget some users have access to the multi-stream of games, also known as mosaic).
• Say you watch a game every night, for, oh I don’t know, 20 nights a month. That’s 26 GB a month spent on just baseball. Who knows how much bandwidth you would’ve consumed doing other things.

I know I’m framing this issue as baseball centric, but I only do this as a practical illustration on a very plausible scenario. It’s much broader than that. Do your part, contact your Congressman or Senator and demand Net Neutrality.

As some of you may know, I tend to cover most of the technological news that come out of the MLB offices, and some of you may remember our coverage of the failed DirecTV-Extra Innings exclusive deal.

Many saw the deal as a greedy money-grab since it would shut-out a good chunk of baseball fans that had paid a hefty price to subscribe to the Extra Innings package via their Cable and Dish services. Back then, the argument put forth by MLB Advance Media was in the form of MLB.TV, an online-relative to the Extra Innings package, which was supposed to serve as a substitute.

What MLB didn’t realize was that, though the service worked, at $89, it was an expensive indulgence that delivered sub par quality that still managed to shun fans that didn’t want to watch baseball on their laptops, or couldn’t due to the need for broadband internet access.

Enter 2008. With more people going online at faster speeds, TV on the web has exploded, and with a few years under its belt, MLB’s online experience is finally coming around to becoming the alternative Bud Selig and his new media henchmen wanted to ram down our throats last year. And they’ve got the numbers to prove it, 1.7 million live streams on Opening Day, to be exact.

The biggest difference this year is the software the system uses to stream the games. Microsoft’s Silverlight is a newcomer to the web, but it proves as a credible competitor to Adobe’s Flash system. The user interface behaves much like Apple’s newest incarnation of OS X or Windows Vista in the sense that there are fancy screens that shrink in size as you navigate from one panel to the next, without having to refresh the page or interrupt the broadcast. And it works well on both Macs and PCs.

The transition from broadcast to commercials is still choppy (the service blocks out ads by placing a generic graphic) and during one game, they forgot to flip the switch as the graphic was stuck for a good 15-20 minutes, or about one and a half innings.

Another significant difference is the fact that you can now watch FOX Saturday baseball games that are not scheduled for your area. As some of you know, FOX has the right to broadcast the “Game of the week” except that FOX sliced the broadcast by region, showing “games” of the week instead.

I’m not an expert on TV deals, but I’m guessing something in the language of the contract prevented MLB.TV from broadcasting any FOX Saturday games, forcing me to watch the Braves or Marlins (National League, and I live in Atlanta) when I wanted to watch White Sox – Cubs.

Now, however, it seems the language changed in favor of allowing out-of-market FOX “Game of the Week” games on MLB.TV (the language on the press release simply reads, “All 2,430 out-of-market games in the regular season will be available live on both MLB.TV and MLB.TV Premium.”) And what’s more, because of the source of the TV streams, we don’t get to listen to or watch the broadcast signal coming from the studios. Yes, that’s right, no Jeanne Zealsko!

–

Edit: As Nick points out in the comments, this is not entirely true. Saturday games will be available on mlb.tv up until May 17th, which is when FOX’s exclusivity clause kicks in, and thus, the games are blacked out.

From mlb.tv’s homepage: • National Live Blackout (Regular Season): Due to Major League Baseball national exclusivities, each Saturday until 7:00 PM EST (beginning May 17, 2008 and continuing for remaining Saturdays during the regular season) and each Sunday night (for games that begin after 5:00 PM EST), all scheduled webcasts of games played within such time period will be blacked out.  –

And what’s so premium about this already posh luxury? Well, like last year, there are two tiers of service, regular and premium. For $89.95 a year you get access to a 400k stream, which is typical good quality web video. But this year, if you pony up $119,95, you get a choice of 800k streams, or 1.2 Mb “NextDef,” “TV quality” streams (either way, you get access to MLB Game Day audio for all games).

Don’t get too excited, though, even though the stream is bigger, and the quality is greater, it isn’t really the same as watching the game on a TV.

Of course, all this could be moot if the cable industry gets away with killing net neutrality (and screwing us all over), but for now, it works, and it gets a nod from me.

After whining themselves into the DirecTV deal, Cable suddenly forgot what team it’s playing for.

The technology landscape has changed dramatically since last year’s ill-fated DirecTV-Extra Innings exclusive deal; more and more people have migrated to the web to watch TV shows and download movies, something that’s been traditionally and intrinsically tied to the Television and the cable or satellite set top box.

Ironically, the Extra Innings deal would’ve forced subscribers to switch to the MLB.TV service, where they’d be able to watch most games from their computers at home or work. But due to huge fan outcry and a brief intervention by Congress, MLB New Media Goons, aka, MLB’s Advance Media arm decided to let Cable into the deal.

This time around, however, it’s Cable that’s about to screw us all over. And this time, I doubt there’s anything Selig or his henchmen can do to stop it.

From the AP:

NEW YORK – Time Warner Cable will experiment with a new pricing structure for high-speed Internet access later this year, charging customers based on how much data they download, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

As you all remember, Time Warner is part of that group of affiliates that own and operate In Demand, the system that distributes the MLB Extra Innings package to cable subscribers.

And this new pricing structure that they’re testing for broadband access will undoubtedly add a premium to the luxurious price that those of us who watch TV programming online (IE, baseball games through MLB.TV) already pay.

And what’s the reasoning, you ask?

Now, let’s see — that pricing structure would be really bad news for any Web entity selling downloadable movies and TV shows. Customers of cable company broadband might think twice if the download would bust them through to the next tier of service, forcing them to pay more.

And, hmm, who is most threatened by Web entities selling movies and TV shows? Why — that would be cable companies! How coincidental! By making downloadable video more expensive, cable companies might convince customers to just watch cable TV or get a movie on cable’s pay-per-view. Amazing how that works, huh?

Sure, that this becomes the norm is only speculative, but the Net Neutrality issue has been brewing for a while, with Cable leading the charge that we ought to have a tiered system to pay for broadband.

And so, the fact that Networks are enticing people to watch TV online, and not to mention, the big push for online movie rentals, oh and of course, music downloads, will make broadband internet service providers (IE, Cable) only think of pulling schemes like Time Warner’s out of their digital rear ends.