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MLB At Bat to stream live games?

I just watched the end of the Yankees game live; the schedule suggests that A's-Dodgers at 10 eastern will also be live.

It's absolutely fantastic. The picture quality is phenomenal--I'm on a WiFi connection now, but the app uses the variable bit rate capability in the 3.0 iPhone OS so that the video will presumably always look as good as your connection will allow.

Also, I have an original generation iPhone, meaning that it's not exclusively using GPS for location--I saw the screen where it locates (it shows a small image of a Google map), and it must have been satisfied with just locating via the EDGE and WiFi systems, because it let me see the game.

All in all, it's almost unbelievably good. I guess they're going to enable this for all games, which will be awesome.
 
MSD401 said:
wow the mlb has gotten everything correct with this app from day one...hopefully the price stays reasonable next year...


EDIT: PS IT WAS AWESOME TO TURN ON THE APP AND WATCH THE YANKEES LOSE LIVE
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couldn't agree more. especially vs the worst team in baseball :X
 
yg17 said:
For mlb.tv, I believe it locates you based off your IP address to determine what games you can watch. Like, I wouldn't be able to watch Cardinals games while in the St. Louis area, but if I travel outside STL I can. I'd imagine with the iPhone, they could just use the GPS to determine where you are.
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You're correct about how it does it for MLB.TV. We moved, and it knew that we moved. This actually worked better for us in terms of blackouts. I guess we'll see how it happens on the iPhone.

map1978 said:
The $10 to listen to the games was worth it alone and now we get to watch live games? This is great and def in my Top 3 Apps.
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Agreed, this is an amazing deal. The $10 for live Gameday (with stats, who's up, etc.) and Audio feeds all season for $10 was already good, but now 2 lives games a day, it's a remarkable deal. At the WWDC keynote, the videos with the developers had someone from MLB.COM talking about people being able to watch games on their phone, so I suspected something like this might be coming when 3.0 came out.

We've used At Bat when we were travelling before to listen to games on the radio feed while driving (you can choose between home and away feeds, which is nice). Now, we can even catch all or part of a game if we're out and about and away from a computer (but not driving though!) :p)

Just saw this before I posted in the article:

Presumably it will make users pay to watch some games, using the new ability of iPhone developers to charge users for content within applications. The company says it has not yet settled on a price.
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So probably the first few games will be free, they'll see how much of a demand there is, and then they'll start charging per game. I hope they keep it free for a while obviously, but if they do eventually charge a reasonable price, I'm sure people will buy them, especially if the quality is as good as their current content is in the app. They've had video highlights up until now which looked good, so we'll see how an entire game goes.
 
What I really wish they would do is allow those that are MLB.tv subscribers log in and can have audio and video access (or at least the limited live games at first like they say).

I love MLB.tv, and this app sounds awesome (I currently only have the Lite version), but man...I'd love to add that to my MLB.tv account value.

Other than that, a tremendous app.
 
App Store says 1-2 games available daily. Subject to blackout and other restrictions. Sounds like they pick the games you can watch live each day.
 
This is pretty badass. The picture quality isn't all that great, but it's still live baseball video on a phone. Who needs that Vcast crap?

The blackout restriction is a bummer, but that's common stuff. Maybe next year you can pay an extra $5 in the app to get all the streams of one team, blackout or not.

If the NFL, not to mention every other sports league in the world, isn't asking MLB how they do this, they are missing out on a lot of money. I'd personally love an MLS app just like this. They have a $20 deal for streaming video and audio of all games online, so I don't see why that can't happen. I don't think the NFL does anything like that because there are fewer games not on TV and DirecTV probably tells them not to.
 
I have the previous version of the full MLB app, but it's not showing any updates on my iPod and on iTunes. Did you guys update from previous versions or just download it directly?
 
FunkyMonkey said:
I have the previous version of the full MLB app, but it's not showing any updates on my iPod and on iTunes. Did you guys update from previous versions or just download it directly?
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I updated it a day or so ago. Didn't see any problems when updating, although slow backup times are back (eek!).
 
Seriously, blackout restrictions freakin' suck! The only way to watch a live Yankees game if you live in New York is to pony up the dough to get cable and add on the YES network.

I'm glad to see the MLB is more aggressive and willing to change its practices than the NFL in some respects, but this kind of sucks.
 
i-John said:
You mean like getting rid of the revenue generating local TV contracts so you can watch what you want for $10.
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I would watch games online, especially on a tiny iPhone screen, as a last resort. If I can, I'd much rather watch game on my 42" TV in HD with surround sound. I'm not going to cancel my cable subscription because I can now watch Cardinals games on a tiny 3 inch phone screen. If I'm watching a game on my phone it's because I'm not at home and can't watch it on my TV.
 
jacinto45 said:
picture quality is phenomenal--I'm on a WiFi connection now, but the app uses the variable bit rate capability in the 3.0 iPhone OS so that the video will presumably always look as good as your connection will allow.
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I have the app, and while I love the ability to see clips and even the 5 minute every-play replay, I was surprised how pixelated the video images were, even on WiFi (pre-update). I will be keenly interested in seeing if they are able to boost the clairty of the video.
 
Checking out the White Sox - Cubs game over 3G. It's just yanking the MLB.tv feed. Quality to be expected for 3G. Buffering quite a bit at first but seemed to stabilize now as I write this. Wi-fi will probably be much better.

As it's going to eat the battery, I have it docked but flipped on the side. Better to not use the dock for this and directly connect the USB cable. I might let it go unplugged for an hour to see how the battery is.

Sound is good so far. You can 30 sec rewind and pause too!

For MLB giving it out for free with the app they get kudos. I can live with it. Being able to watch a game while at a pub will get you free drinks. At least that's what I'm hoping. :)
 
This is retarded. I live 181 miles away from Wrigley Field in another state and am blacked out for the game. Really? Let me just hop right in my car and go watch the game.
 
MLB_Blackout_Map1000x733.gif


in case any of you are interested.
 
I get a postal code lookup error! I am outside of Charlotte, NC so I am not sure why or how this is happening??
 
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