last100 » MLB

Roku set-top box adds Major League Baseball streaming (MLB.TV)

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:51:51 +0000

Roku’s cheap but increasingly versatile set-top box has added another feather to its bow.

Joining both Netflix and Amazon-On-Demand, the $99 Roku Video Player can now stream live ‘out of market’ and archived baseball matches — in 720p HD no less — courtesy of MLB.TV (US-only).

Fans will of course still have to pony up for a season pass ($35) but that doesn’t seem like such as bad deal now that you can easily pipe that content to a wide-screen TV, and especially if you’re already an owner of Roku’s cheap ‘n’ cheerful little box.

(Also see Dave Zatz’s five suggestions for how to improve Roku’s offering.)

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Boxee grows up with official Major League Baseball streaming partnership

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:40:39 +0000

Major League Baseball on Boxee

Forget the ongoing spat with Hulu, PC-to-TV media player Boxee has announced an official partnership with MLB.com.

Subscribers to the MLB.TV Premium can now use Boxee to pipe content from the service, which includes “live and on-demand in HD (where available)”, to their TVs or simply enjoy Boxee’s ‘ten foot’ and remote control-friendly UI on their PC. On that note, MLB.TV Premium offers DVR functionality to pause and rewind a live game.

Going forward, Boxee hopes this is the first of such partnerships, as live sport is bound to be seen as a major driver of uptake for Internet TV solutions such as Boxee.

MLB.com represents a big step for boxee as we hope this is the first of many different live sports offerings we can bring to you. We hope other sports follow MLB.com’s lead of giving fans a choice of how they enjoy watching their favorite teams…. [Boxee blog]

The company also announced that a version of Boxee, albeit in Alpha, is now available for Windows along with existing versions for Mac OSX and Linux.

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Hmm. ESPN developing “interactive television programming” around baseball content

Daniel Langendorf — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:04:03 +0000

ESPN and Major League Baseball Advanced Media announced today that they have extended their new-media rights deal, allowing ESPN to stream live games on the Internet and add baseball content onto a number of platforms and devices.

But that news didn’t catch my eye. Buried deep was a little tidbit about ESPN also developing interactive television programming around baseball content.

Ding! Ding! Ding! What the heck does that mean?

Will ESPN and unnamed partners develop some sort of interactive widget or mini-screen that runs alongside baseball broadcasts on ESPN? Will this interactive television programming thingy offer up baseball stats and news from the ESPN Web site in real time?

Could ESPN be another player in what seemingly is the latest round of companies attempting to put dynamic Web content on our living room TVs?

Just yesterday Yahoo and Intel announced they were working together to bring Web content to the TV set through the use of widgets. We noted then that companies large and small have attempted to bring Web content to TV for years and that most of the efforts have failed for a variety of reasons.

There are no guarantees that the Yahoo/Intel “Channel Widget” platform will amount to much. And there’s no more word on what it means for ESPN to develop interactive television programming around baseball content.

But this activity is intriguing. Maybe there are a few companies rethinking the Internet-to-TV interactive relationship, and they might have some innovative solutions up their sleeves.

The time seems ripe, and who better to lead the charge than sports programming? The ESPN/MLBAM deal allows ESPN to stream on ESPN360 its Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday-night telecasts. ESPN can syndicate some MLB content to its partners, delivering baseball on alternative platforms such as iTunes and Xbox Live Marketplace. And maybe, just maybe, ESPN Web content is going to mingle with the sports network on your TV.

Ooh. This is getting interesting.

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MLB.com’s At Bat brings real-time game stats and immediate video highlights to iPhone

Daniel Langendorf — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:10:16 +0000

I really could have used MLB.com’s new At Bat application for the iPhone this weekend.

Our seats for the Cardinals-Astros games Friday and Sunday weren’t bad, all things considered, but we were in the outfield underneath an overhang from the deck above us at Minute Maid Park. We could not see the gigantic scoreboard, which is essential for real-time game information and knowing what the heck is going on.

To help us keep up with player names, positions, averages, and all the other stats generated by baseball, I turned to a Web-based application for the iPhone called Sports Tap. It’s a wonderfully simple app that tracks games and events in the sporting world from baseball, basketball, football and hockey to NASCAR, and Formula 1 racing. It’s sort of a mobile SportsCenter without the ESPN branding.

I tapped on St. Louis at Houston and was taken to a scoring summary, or boxscore. The user interface was a bit primitive — I had to go to separate pages to view St. Louis or Houston player statistics, and there was no wiki-like link between the two for easy navigation, but overall I could keep up with lineup changes and statistics.

MLB.com, the interactive arm of Major League Baseball, has substantially improved on Sports Tap by not only offering real time scores and statistics but also video highlights, which amazingly are available moments after a play like Lance Berkman’s towering 460-foot home run on Sunday.

“MLB At Bat will constantly update all the data of each game,” Adam Ritter, MLB’s vice president of wireless, said at the Apple World Wide Developers Conference. “You not only get to see all the data but a couple of minutes after that you get to see the play that put your team ahead or that great defensive play.”

Not only would At Bat be handy in the stadium, but think about all the times when you want to follow your team in the March Madness college basketball tournament or the NBA Finals and you’re stuck shopping with the wife and kid or going out to dinner when you’d rather be at home in front of the TV.

At Bat, which will be available when the App Store launches in July, gives you a seat at the ballpark or at the mall. We just hope that other sports leagues will follow MLB.com and make their own iPhone applications.

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Five companies that sold customers down the DRM-filled river

Steve O'Hear — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:29:50 +0000

The news last week that Microsoft plans to turn off its verification servers for its now-defunct MSN Music store, is a stark reminder of the potential pitfalls customers face whenever they purchase content crippled by Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. Any digital store that sells or loans you content in a copy-protected format makes you a hostage to that store or format’s commercial success. The Microsoft example, however, is just one of many. Here are five cases where companies have sold their customers down the DRM-filled river.

Major League Baseball

In June last year, MLB.com decided to change DRM systems, resulting in any videos of games purchased prior to 2006, even if burnt to CD, becoming unplayable. This is because each time a video is played, the DRM software is required to ‘phone home’ and verify the content with the corresponding DRM server. If the server is no longer in operation the content becomes void. Following complaints from users and a wait of over seven months, MLB rectified the situation, claiming they “didn’t anticipate the problems”, and offered to replace any content where available, like for like, using the newly implemented DRM scheme.

Google

Last August, Google announced that it was closing its video download store, informing existing customers in an email that “after August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos.” That’s because, like MLB.com, Google was switching off its DRM verification servers. Compensation was initially offered via a Google Checkout “bonus” credit, but following a user and media backlash, Google eventually relented, offering full credit card refunds to affected customers, in addition to the bonus credit.

Sony

In August last year, Sony announced that it was ditching its proprietary audio format, ATRAC, in favor of a variety of more popular formats. At the same time, the company said it planned to close down its Sony Connect music store no earlier than March 2008. While existing libraries of purchased music from the Connect store were not at risk, according to Sony’s official closure FAQ, the company still recommends that customers burn their music libraries to an audio CD — indicating that Sony may not support Connect DRM indefinitely.

Virgin Digital

Last September, Virgin announced that it would be shutting down its Virgin Digital music store and subscription service in one month’s time. The service allowed customers to download tracks up to four times to replace lost or damaged purchases, such as that caused by a hard drive failure or PC upgrade. Since that option would no longer be available with the store closing, and with it the shutdown of Virgin Digital’s DRM verification server, the company advised customers who’d purchased tracks to back them up on CDs and re-import them as MP3s, if needed. In other words, like Sony, Virgin’s long term response was to encourage their customers to circumvent the existing copy protection.

Microsoft

Just last week, Microsoft sent out an email to customers of its defunct MSN Music store informing them that by August 31, 2008 they need to make a choice: “commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for”, reports Ars Technica. That’s because Microsoft will be turning off the MSN Music DRM servers by the end of this summer. Once again, customers are left with the only real option of “burning all of their music to audio CD and then re-ripping them back to the computer as MP3s, sans DRM”.

Image credit: DefectiveByDesign.org

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