Let's Talk About MLBTV

czar

fanboy
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
4,312
Ann Arbor
MLB.tv on Chromecast is useless for me. I even hardwired the Chromecast to my router which pulls like 100MB/s down, so either Comcast is throttling MLB.tv or MLB.tv over Chromecast sucks (MLB.tv blamed Comcast when I called them last year, Comcast blamed MLB.tv). Chromecast is fine with Netflix, Hulu, etc.

FireTV stick seems marginally better, although I haven't spent too much time on that this year.

Have next-to-no problems streaming on iPhone or iPad -- laptop browser is usually fine at work.

Extremely frustrating.
 

Back Bay

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Dec 9, 2008
15,701
I pretty much was only able to enjoy Sale's outing via audio last night. Streaming is still an issue, it started maybe about 2 year ago.
 

cromulence

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Aug 25, 2009
6,707
For what it's worth, it seems like the first week of the season is always a shitshow. It's still terrible that this seems to happen every year, but I wouldn't give up hope just because it's off to a bad start.
 

Flunky

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Jan 3, 2009
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No, it's their issue. Both years they've confirmed that my IP was giving my location in NC, but for some reason I was blocked from BAL/WAS along with additional teams for some reason.
well, this came across as quite snippy. but then you might have taken my original comment that way, which I didn't mean, so sorry about that if that was the case.

As you can see by the MLB blackout map, North Carolina has a few different blackout configurations. I would imagine if you're close to a lot of the edges of that shading in your state, if your ISP misses what town or county you're in by just a little bit, your blackouts could be inaccurate. I faced this problem myself in Fairfield County CT, the only New England county NOT in the Boston DMA. My ISP, AT&T, would constantly place my location just over 20 miles away. Clearly not good enough for Red Sox games. It's their fault for not accurately telling the rest of the world where an IP is actually located.

As to Sumner's point, maybe it's partially MLB's fault for relying on such a weak solution. They do mitigate this where they can - the mobile app will use the enhanced geoloc capabilities even on a non-cell enabled ipad. However, for other platforms like Apple TV or Roku or I am guessing the Amazon and Google equiv products, they don't build those additional capabilities into those devices. So really, if you want to play the shit rolls downhill game, it's the makers of these devices who are at fault. My guess is when they designed them, they mostly cared about simple things like blacking you out of Netflix if you're not in the US. Sports blackouts obviously require a finer touch.

 
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CarolinaBeerGuy

Don't know him from Adam
SoSH Member
Mar 14, 2006
9,422
Kernersville, NC
Sorry, no snip intended. I am fairly close to the cutoff area for Cincinnati (why they'd be blacked out, I have no idea - it's 425 miles away) so that may be the problem. I understand the Atlanta blackout, because that's a little over 300 miles and there's tons of Braves fans here.
 

normstalls

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Mar 15, 2004
4,486
Amazon fire stick (original one) has been good for me so far this season (knocking on wood)
 

Orange Julia

kittens kitttens kittens kittens
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Dec 13, 2006
13,828
NatsTown!
I have a smart tv and tried watching MLBtv on it yesterday. No bueno. same with watching on my laptop--absolutely unwatchable. I switched over to the Roku and even though it is a good 60 seconds lagged, it worked.

I do not have trouble with any other streaming service on the smart tv or the computer. I would say MLBtv is even worse this year than last.
 

schillzilla

New Member
May 11, 2006
122
I have a TiVo roamio and it keeps popping up an error after watching the feed for 20-30 minutes. Have to exit the stream and restart. :( I was able to stream it with decent results via the iPad app. I have the TiVo hardwired to my fios connection. I frequently stream 1080p via amazon (on TiVo) with zero issues. Been like this for years sadly.
 

Bosoxen

Bounced back
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Apr 29, 2005
10,186
I've watched a few different ways so far this season (in order of quality):

-Laptop
-Fire stick
-Android phone
-Chromecast (from phone)

I've only had to restart the stream once (on the Fire stick in the 8th inning after Sale had departed). Other than the occasional minor blurring on the Chromecast stream, I've had no other issues. We're only a week into the season but this year seems to be far better than prior years, where I would constantly have to restart the stream.

And now I've probably jinxed myself.
 

RedOctober3829

Member
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Jul 19, 2005
55,299
deep inside Guido territory
The only issue I found was yesterday watching on the laptop. It lagged behind so much that I had to refresh. It was at least 5 pitches behind. I was getting notifications on my phone in the 8th inning that Leon had a 2 run single and I was still on the Moreland intentional walk.
 

Just a bit outside

Member
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Apr 6, 2011
7,929
Monument, CO
Is anyone else having difficulty with the radio feeds? I have been having no trouble watching on appletv and limited problems watching on my phone but when I try to listen to the radio feed it skips back every 20-30 seconds like a scratched record. When I exit the app it resets to the current pitch and then skips again.
 

glennhoffmania

meat puppet
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Jul 25, 2005
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For the third time this season, while watching on my phone, everything froze up and I had to reboot. This only happens when I'm using MLB.tv. It's getting pretty fucking annoying.
 

Bosoxen

Bounced back
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Apr 29, 2005
10,186
As expected, I did jinx myself. Constant buffering tonight. Can't watch more than 2 minutes at a time without buffering. Probably doesn't help that the wife and kid are also streaming a movie but I know for a fact they haven't suffered a single buffer.
 

glennhoffmania

meat puppet
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Jul 25, 2005
8,411,599
NY
This thing is the worst. If it didn't from free with EI I wouldn't spend a dime on it. I can't get through a game without multiple issues. Is there anything that one can do to reduce the number of times it totally freezes up?
 

cromulence

Member
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Aug 25, 2009
6,707
Maybe try manually turning down the quality? I haven't had any issues so far this year, but it seems like most people are.

I have a slightly different question - has anyone managed to successfully make an exception for Chrome to allow Flash for mlb.tv? I've tried adding the entire domain for both mlb.com and mlb.tv and it still blocks it every time.
 

czar

fanboy
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
4,312
Ann Arbor
FWIW (and SSS) but Safari was much better than Chrome for today's game. I'm on a fiber connection at work (600 MB/s down) and Chrome was still very skippy and jittery with either DVR or classic players.

Maybe try manually turning down the quality? I haven't had any issues so far this year, but it seems like most people are.

I have a slightly different question - has anyone managed to successfully make an exception for Chrome to allow Flash for mlb.tv? I've tried adding the entire domain for both mlb.com and mlb.tv and it still blocks it every time.
I have no issues on Chrome -- I have "ask first" set but MLB.tv (or MLB.com) are not listed under exceptions and (at the moment) I do not have to manually approve it every time I log in.
 

cleanturtle

New Member
Feb 2, 2007
32
Is anyone else having difficulty with the radio feeds? I have been having no trouble watching on appletv and limited problems watching on my phone but when I try to listen to the radio feed it skips back every 20-30 seconds like a scratched record. When I exit the app it resets to the current pitch and then skips again.
This is exactly what has happened to me whenever I use the app, starting the last month of last season.
 

Cumberland Blues

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Sep 9, 2001
5,193
I'm in NE so I use a VPN to get the Sox as I don't have cable or satellite. I usually have no issue using Chromecast to get it to my TV. But today, the stream comes up fine on my PC....But when I cast it to my Samsung smart TV I get a blackout message on the TV. Has anyone else encountered this and figured a workaround?
 

CoffeeNerdness

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Jun 6, 2012
8,714
I encountered that as well. I believe the workaround for that would be to set up your VPN at the router level. For whatever reason the way it works now since they added official Chromecast support in the browser is that it's getting location from the Chromecast itself and bypassing the VPN on your computer. (I believe).

Anyone use the Xbox app? I get zero audio when using the Xbox app. No park sound, no announcers, nada.
 

Cumberland Blues

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Sep 9, 2001
5,193
It was back to normal last night. I'm wondering if it was because it was a national broadcast on Saturday? I was thinking that the workaround would be to not have a machine-specific VPN but a network wide VPN - if the problem persists on the national broadcasts, I'll have to learn how to do that between now and the post-season.
 

h8mfy

New Member
Jul 15, 2005
336
Orange County, CA
I have almost zero streaming and/or buffering issues with MLB TV this year both through the Roku and directly on Samsung Smart TV. I keep looking for it after reading this thread but it has been really solid, here in OC on a Cox internet feed, but have only one game saw the buffer indicator came on briefly a few times but no freeze.

I'd really love some improvements in the app - ability to remember what my feed preferences are (it knows I want Red Sox why not NESN as default feed?), and it would be nice to be able to swap between two games without going all the way out and back in.
 

leftfieldlegacy

Member
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Jul 31, 2005
1,005
North Jersey
I have the MLB TV package which was included when I purchased the extra innings package on FIOS. I am able to access all out of market games on my computer(s) (using Chrome) but during almost all of the games I am not given the choice of which feed I want to use. It defaults to the home TV broadcast. At other times, I have the ability to access multiple feeds (home, away radio, park sounds).
Any ideas on how to fix this so I can select the broadcast of my choice for all games?
 

InsideTheParker

persists in error
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
40,371
Pioneer Valley
If anyone wants mlbtv, there is a half-price offer ending tonight: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/232341162/save-50-percent-on-mlbtv-this-weekend/?topicId=27118122
MLB.TV is offering 50 percent off subscriptions throughout Memorial Day weekend. MLB.TV Premium, with nearly two dozen features for subscribers to access and interact with live out-of-market Major League Baseball games at 60 frames per second on any of the more than 400 supported devices, is on sale for just $56.49. MLB.TV Single Team subscriptions are also available, on sale for $43.74.
 

CaptainLaddie

dj paul pfieffer
SoSH Member
Sep 6, 2004
36,687
where the darn libs live
I dunno. I rarely have issues. I'm usually 3-4 pitches behind on Twitter. When I watch on my laptop/desktop I don't think I've had a MLB.tv side issue this year. It's the same backbone as HBOGo, and that also works flawlessly...
 

normstalls

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 15, 2004
4,486
Trying to fire up MLB.TV in Chrome and getting a new message tonight...
You have launched an event that is only accessible with Adobe Flash Player.

Anybody else see that? I have Adobe installed and have not seen this before. I also have confirmed it is enabled.
I'm guessing I am missing something here...but can't figure it out. any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot
 

cromulence

Member
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Aug 25, 2009
6,707
I asked about this earlier in the thread. Chrome blocks Flash, but even if I add it as an exception, MLB.tv gets blocked. I've just resigned myself to clicking to allow it this time, every time (look in the upper right when the page loads).
 

normstalls

Member
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Mar 15, 2004
4,486
I asked about this earlier in the thread. Chrome blocks Flash, but even if I add it as an exception, MLB.tv gets blocked. I've just resigned myself to clicking to allow it this time, every time (look in the upper right when the page loads).

Cool, thank you. I will give that a try tonight.
 

nvalvo

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
21,484
Rogers Park
Trying to fire up MLB.TV in Chrome and getting a new message tonight...
You have launched an event that is only accessible with Adobe Flash Player.

Anybody else see that? I have Adobe installed and have not seen this before. I also have confirmed it is enabled.
I'm guessing I am missing something here...but can't figure it out. any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot
Looks like MLB is doing something dumb. Worried (probably with reason) that people with Flash blocked (like me!) will just see a blank rectangle instead of a video, they added language to check for Flash capability. This leads them to withhold the video from people whose browsers just want to see what the Flash is going to do, or prompt the user, before they allow it to run.

It's a bad idea.
 

Flunky

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Jan 3, 2009
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CT
try chrome://flags/ and change Prefer HTML over Flash to "disabled"
 

normstalls

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Mar 15, 2004
4,486
Right on - thanks fellas, I appreciate. I just got hung up on what all the sudden changed and didn't understand why this seemed to just start out of the blue on me. An update by MLB in how they are handling flash makes sense. I'll give the flags change a try.
 

amlothi

Member
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Jan 5, 2007
802
MLB.com is offering their MLB.TV Premium + MLB.com At Bat Premium Yearly Subscription for $10.

Note, offer valid only until the conclusion of the final MLB game tonight (likely around 1am EST 6/30).
 

JohnnyK

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May 8, 2007
1,941
Wolfern, Austria
It is still working as of right now, I think I also saw an offer extended banner so it could still be available for another few hours.

Note that that it is set to automatically renew around March 1 at the full price.
 

leftfieldlegacy

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2005
1,005
North Jersey
Trying to fire up MLB.TV in Chrome and getting a new message tonight...
You have launched an event that is only accessible with Adobe Flash Player.

Anybody else see that? I have Adobe installed and have not seen this before. I also have confirmed it is enabled.
I'm guessing I am missing something here...but can't figure it out. any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot
I posted a similar question a few posts earlier. I called MLBtv support and was told to try a different browser. I tried IE and everything worked great.
 

normstalls

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 15, 2004
4,486
For whatever reason it wasnt working for me in IE either..though it worked fine for my dad in IE. I used @Flunky's tip and it worked great.
 
I took advantage of the $10 offer and subscribed to MLB.TV the other day, and I'm wondering if anyone here can answer a question. I have a two-monitor setup in my study, and I want to be able to show a single game full-screen on one display and have access to the stats feed from that game on the second display. My early attempts to configure this setup have failed spectacularly...has anyone else had more success?
 

AB in DC

OG Football Writing
SoSH Member
Jul 10, 2002
13,633
Springfield, VA
Note that that it is set to automatically renew around March 1 at the full price.
Not only that, but that auto-renewal is 100% non-refundable. Which is an awfully shitty thing to do in any context.

I literally emailed MLB within minutes after subscribing (for 2017) to cancel my subscription (for 2018).

(p.s. I gotta watch this thread more closely next year. I was pretty stoked about getting yesterday's special price of $20.17, only to find out it was apparently $10 the previous week)
 

DrBlinky

Member
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Jun 18, 2002
825
Cranston, RI
To avoid those issues I now order mlb.tv with a temp credit card number that I set to expire in 2 months. (This is done using ShopSafe with a Bank of America card.)
 

LoweTek

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May 30, 2005
2,183
Central Florida
Anybody else experiencing this? Watching a game live over the past week or so, regardless of device, (Roku and Fire Stick), game comes back from commercial break and the announcers are gone? It goes into stadium sound only mode. It's happened at least five time during the day game today using the Fire Stick.
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

Don't know him from Adam
SoSH Member
Mar 14, 2006
9,422
Kernersville, NC
My mlb.tv experience has been surprisingly positive over the past few months. The only real issue is the delay. At one point during last week's Yankees series, the NESN feed on my tablet was over 4 minutes behind the ESPN broadcast my brother was watching. Made texting a little awkward because he knew not to spoil anything.
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

Don't know him from Adam
SoSH Member
Mar 14, 2006
9,422
Kernersville, NC
For the second year in a row, I've had to spend nearly an hour on the phone because they screwed up my blackout location. I'm in NC, so I should be blacked out of WAS and BAL. I couldn't watch PHI and CIN on Monday. It's very frustrating. Last year it was Braves games that were blocked.

Also, anyone noticing the usual stuttering and jumping back 15 seconds? This was happening to me during the Sox game. I don't understand how this keeps happening when MLB Advaced Media is so good at what they do.
Looks like I spoke too soon. Tonight I had the same issue from the beginning of the year: Reds-Yankees blacked out. After spending several minutes on the phone, they were finally able to fix it. I asked what the problem was and was told my IP address must be pinging a tower (I'm watching on Roku) in the Cincinnati area. I told him this makes no sense and he said I should call my service provider and ask for a static IP address. It's fixed, but this is annoying as fuck to have to keep dealing with the same unnecessary headache.
 

Cumberland Blues

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Sep 9, 2001
5,193
Recently the mlbtv app has gone a bit haywire on me. Very choppy, and when I bring up a game, it automatically goes live...used to have a choice to start from the beginning. Anyone else having this issue?