MLB.tv Problems?

I believe it's all part of their plan to force me to buy the better package. So far, it has sucked.

Choppy reception is killing me. I'm tempted to upgrade. The only thing that'd make me upgrade faster is if MLB.tv has recruited Ken "Hawk" Harrelson to act as it's announcer for the low quality package for EVERY game, EVERY day. I'd offer the $30 just so every broadcast booth in America wouldn't spontaneously combust.

I have the premium and its dicey at best. I end up watching in low quality in general regardless. Also, I've been having issues watching the archived games, where I just get an error when I try to watch them.

The thing that has helped me watch the live games better is the mlb.tv mosaic software, its very slow, but I feel like its more reliable.

I'm currently pissed about MLB.tv as well. I had a good experience last year, when they offered 400k and 800k streams. The 400k was very sharp, and the 800k looked decent on fullscreen, with only occasional lags.

I reupped this year and the first game I watched I was prompted to choose between the "old" video player and the new Silverlight plugin. Being suspicious of new software, I chose the old, and it worked fine.

I became curious about the new 1200k stream, and when I clicked on it, I was informed a needed to download 2 plugins, the first some kind of driver, the second the Silverlight player/skin. Biting the bullet, and figuring I could always revert to the old player if needed, I followed the instructions, and shortly after got very po'd.

The new player sucks and has all the problems you've indicated. Plus, the first downloaded driver now is everpresent in the backround even wether I'm on the internet or not, eating cpu and memory. Last, I can't revert to the old way. I've been listening to Hamilton the last two games.

That's my experience - I'm going to try to uninstall the new downloads and see what happens. I haven't had time to call MLB.com tech support and ask what my options are.

The only upside is that given this SSS feedback, MLB.com is probably working overtime right now to improve the product. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets better a little later in the season.

My works wonderfully. I have the premium and am able to watch every game on 1.2mb without a hitch. Maybe it is cause I am running OSX, a more capable OS.

I have the regular version and it has generally been pretty good.

Last year I had the 400K package and it was fine, this year I signed up for the Premium package and have also experienced most of the problems listed above, plus suffered from continual buffering issues, not being that IT savvy if anyone knows how to fix it, it would be greatly appreciated.

For the first week I have been watching the 400K stream or giving up and listening to the radio call.

So what's the consensus then? I live in New York and I was just about to buy the premium package; now I'm having second thoughts...

Should I wait and see if some of these issues get worked out, or is it still worth the hassle just to be able to watch something?

I've been having problems with my MLB.tv too. Whenever the Indians play out in Anaheim, the game looks the same on my computer but if I watch closely, I see we have a terrible "closer" who lobs the ball underhand and gives up game-losing grand slams.

This is like watching a damn flipbook.

OK, so this isn't about MLB.tv, but I spent the better part of an hour (more if you include hold time) on the phone with a tech support guy for MLB.com in regards to Gameday Audio. Among the things I learned:

-The tech support staff are nice and patient and even competent,
-You must install Microsoft Silverlight to run MLB.tv or Gameday Audio, despite it being completely unnecessary for the audio feed,
-Windows ME (don't ask) does not support Silverlight under any circumstances, despite working with past platforms,
-The combination of Mozilla Firefox and Windows Vista will not run Silverfox; one must instead use Explorer - this is often, but not always true,
-You cannot be logged into MLB.com on multiple computers and hope to access audio or visual pay content. One login only.

Oh, and the reason I learned that final point was that the tech support guy told me that if I really wanted to listen to Gameday Audio on my computer with Windows ME, I could open the audio feed (with Explorer, of course) on my Vista computer, then copy the link and email it to my ME computer, log out of the Vista computer, then log into MLB.com on the ME Computer, open Windows Media Player and paste in the link. Yup.

Part of why I say the tech staff was pleasant and competent was because they realize that the switch to Silverlight has not been perfect and has created problems, particularly if all you want to do is listen to the audio feed. As a supervisor, he actually took notes (!) of our conversation and promised (?) to enter them into the notes of their next meeting. He was even honest with me and said that it's unlikely much would change, except possibly for the Mozilla/Vista thing.

At the end of the day, he got my audio feed to work, if only on one computer in a less-than-ideal way.

mrich - yeah, I just did the same thing and I'm back to where I wanna be for now. It's pretty clear the Silverlight and NextDef plugins are still buggy, they've already released updates. But I'll wait until later in the season, thank you.

For PC users stuck with crappy MLB.tv after downloading plugins - go to control panel, add/remove programs, remove Microsoft Silverlight and MLBNextDef, and you will have just fine 800K stream that will play nearly fullscreen w/o probs. Thanks for the feedback - it made me less cautious about messing with the downloads, and I'm perky once more...

btw, you don't need Silverlight or any other new plugin for GameDay Audio or the 400/800 vidstream. I've just tried it all and its good to go.

Not sure about you guys but tonight's game (Tuesday) was the best quality yet for me.

I've just uninstalled Silverlight and MLBNextDef lets see what it looks like for tomorrow's game.