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MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

crazyyankeesad.jpgWe are longtime subscribers to MLB.tv. It only makes sense. We love the Cardinals, we don't live in St. Louis and we are on our computer pretty much all the time. It's also cheaper than MLB Extra Innings and, on the whole, runs on a programming system that doesn't kill our computer.

Well, until this year. We were wondering if other people were having the same problems we were having with MLB.tv this year, and, via Off Wing Opinion, we realize now that we're not at all. The system has switched to a new Flash-based application this year, which is making everything slower, on our computer anyway. It also buffers for a long time, has sync issues with the audio and, as the piece above points out, archived games are a mess.

So we thought, OK, fine: We work out of home anyway, maybe we'll just cancel our MLB.tv subscription — currently billed month-to-month, automatically — and get the Extra Innings package. Maybe we can make it a tax writeoff. But that hasn't worked either; we can't get anyone on the phone or online to answer our calls or emails.

Oh, and they're doing ads like the one on the side there with A-Rod coming on to Derek Jeter.

Last year, we loved MLB.tv so much that we gave it out as Christmas presents. And now we're completely turned off on it. Anyone else having trouble?

That Billion-dollar Business Model [Colby Cash] (Off Wing Opinion)

11:00 AM on Mon Apr 10 2006
By Leitch
6,540 views
17 comments

Comments

  • The number they give has been busy for about a week straight. It won't allow me to watch any Phillies games from Chicago. While not being able to watch Phillies games may be a blessing in disguise, it is still bull shit that they are telling me the game is blacked out when clearly it shouldn't be. MLB.tv sucks.

  • I keep recieving emails thanking me for re-subscribing...over and over and over. Yet when I try to log-in, it asks me to subscribe. Extra Innings was free for the first week, but it better be taken care of now.

  • I ordered my Extra Innings package a couple of weeks ago...but I had to do it directly through my cable company by phone as every other avenue I took was ignored. So much for technology.

  • The blackouts are rediculous. I'm cancelling today.

  • They operate a monopoly now expanding into many other businesses--no time for us. Soon you'll be able to order a carton of milk from MLB.com. But don't ask them to hold the cookies.

  • A few things. 1. Use Firefox. If you watch MLB.tv through Firefox, it loads the normal WMV plug-in instead of the Flash-based thing in Internet Explorer. 2. the700level: What's your billing address? The Phillies games may be blacked out if your billing address is in Philly. It's worked for me. Sure, it takes a minute at the start of the feed to buffer, but I've had no problems with the AV sync. Don't know about the archived games.

  • Aren't blackouts the fault of the FCC? I just do the MLB.com gameday radio thing, it's okay for the most part because I can just listen to day games at work. Also xm satellite radio carries all the radio broadcasts too, which is sweet.

  • I have MLB.tv to watch Cardinals games in South Bend, IN and I was able to watch all 3 Phillies games no problem. The picture was fine, it wasn't slow or anything. I don't know about the Cubs/Cards series, because they were all on tv here since we're so close to Chicago. When you log in, it looks like it's asking you to subscribe, but it's not. You can just click on whatever game on the left sidebar and it comes right up. I also watched a Red Sox game Friday night on the program and that worked fine too.

  • I'm using Firefox with MLB TV on my laptop and I'm not having any major problems. Sometimes the feed can be a little skittish but usually closing the window and re-opening it seems to fix the problem. Plus, I've never had trouble with any Rockies games yet this year, and that's really the only reason I got it in the first place. Only trouble I've noticed with the archived games is that the picture quality isn't as good.

  • if you're having problems getting games to load, try changing your windows media player settings. load wmp, go to tools, options, and networkd, and have the following clicked; udp, http, and use ports 7000-7007. the double click on http under protocol, and change it to do not use a proxy server. I was having problems too until I found this out on the mlb.com support page. http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/help/faq_technical.jsp#q...

  • BK, my billing address is in the Philly market, but if I'm in Chicago I should be able to view Phillies games from there. This happened to me last year as well, but I was able to get through to a person and they fixed it. I've tried calling probably 10 times a day for the first week of the season to no avail.

  • No problems here watching Red Sox games in DC last week. I am also really excited about the prospect of the Mosaiac- ability to watch 6 games at once. I used both Firefox and IE without incident, although I could not figure out how to make Firefox go to full screen mode.

  • anyone know how long its going to be until the multiple games feature is released?

  • I'm a displaced Yankees fan with two roomates, one from the south side of Chicago and the other from Boston, so needless to say we have a pressing need for both of these baseball packages. We subscribe to Extra Innings on Comcast as well as to MLB.tv. I wouldn't go getting all excited about the cable package. Games constantly come on in the 4th inning, black out mid-swing, and catch strange kinds of interference. Not to mention they always go with the Comcast Sports Net announcers where available making it absolutely necessary to mute the tube and listen to tunes. Some of these guys would kill for the speaking skills of Joe Morgan (insert sarcasm here) and are even more blatant than Hawk and DJ (White Sox announcers) when it comes to loudly cheering for the home team for nine innings while knowing absolutely nothing about the opposition. It's unbearable. As for MLB.tv, I've experienced all the same issues as you (slow buffers, multiple log-in attempts and all that), but it's worth noting that the service has been working perfectly on my Mac this season while my roomate's Windows computer has been having constant problems. I think this must be because of the new flash-based system as it's a 180 degree change from last year when I could never get the thing to work on my computer but my roomate never had issues. Gdluck to all you far-from-home hardball fans and LETS GO YANKEES!

  • I once actually managed to get through to thejm on the phone (to cancel my subscription at the end of last season, after my emails to the address they told me to use for customer service got bounced back multiple times), and they claimed the blackouts were based on the your physical location (i.e., where you were accessing the internet from). But it's not true - it's based on your billing address, as was mentioned above. I lived in Boston (and accessed the internet from there) and was able to watch the Red Sox on MLB.tv for the last two years without any blackout problems. There's a link somewhere on the site that says the blackouts are determined based on your billing zip code. It gives lists of zips that are blacked out for each team. My zip code wasn't on the list for Boston because it's a new zip code that MLB.tv doesn't have for some reason ("new" being about 7 or 8 years), so I assume that's why I was able to access the games. As for the general problems with viewing, I always thought it wasn't great even before - tons of buffering, feed cutting in and out, freezing all the time. I finally gave in and got cable this year because I couldn't take it anymore.

  • Games that are using a Comcast SportsNet feed from Chicago on the Extra Innings package might also suffer from the fact that CSN randomly has technical difficulties and the games disappear or don't air even in Chicago. Last year was their first year on the air and this happened several times; we're hoping it doesn't happen again this year, but no one is very optimistic, as they continued to have problems with some Bulls broadcasts. They might have had problems with Hawks games too, but seeing as only half of them air to begin with, and no one watches them anyways these days, I doubt anyone would have noticed.

  • it's freakin' worthless. the blackouts are only during games you really want to see. who cares if i can watch it after it's over-i'm paying for the service to see it live!

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