By somewhat popular request.

by Faux on Jul 10, 2008 9:57 AM PDT

I recently posted directions to viewing MLBTV on VLC in an (almost) empty gamethread. Today I saw a couple people asking about it while perusing past threads, so I figured I'd post it in a more conspicuous place.

via i241.photobucket.com

I can attest that it does work (that's my desktop pictured), although path I took was a little different (and more roundabout) from the ones on the thread below. I did follow the directions below for my laptop, and it comes to the same conclusion.

1 - You'll need Firefox (non-version specific), VLC, and you need to uninstall any Silverlight/Autobahn plugins, and especially Mosaic (uses Silverlight). I used the latest build of FF (3.0 full release).

2 - It's much easier to just have VLC installed before you install the add-on. I'm sure most people that read this already do, but it allows you just run the setup wizard directly from the install.

3 - Most likely, you will have to restart after all these steps complete. VLC doesn't like using the WMP8 codecs you install in step 11, and restarting forces the issue.

4 - You may have to play around with the add-on settings to get this to work correctly, depending on any prior configurations. On my GFs machine, it was follow-the-directions easy, on my LT it involved some random tweaks.

The simplest way to use this is to go to the link from the media guide as opposed to the main page. The main page MLBTV links take you to the 400k stream, and who wants that?

When the page loads up, it will then start VLC,and play your game in the VLC window. At this point, you can close the window behind, in the same way you would through WMP.

You can then repeat this step for as many games as you can fit down your pipe. 10@800k was easy for my oversubscribed business-class FIOS, and people should be able to fit 6@800k on an average cable line.

Two notes for full-screen secondary video output people (such as myself):

1 - Most video cards will use the video stream you first open as the full-screen clone, with no way to change it. On older video cards, you will need to close all video streams to reset the fullscreen stream. On newer cards (DX9.?, not sure exactly where the cutoff is), it will substitute the next one opened chronologically. This means plan out what streams you want to watch fullscreen ahead of time, and be prepared to start from scratch if a game you want to watch on your second screen comes on after you've already put up all your screens.

2 - If you're watching on a large (32" or above) TV, and have a decently fast computer, you will find much better quality by turning on deinterlacing and post-processing. Neither of these options make much of a difference when viewing on your PC, however.

Directions found on MLB.TV Forums here.

If anyone shows interest in it, I'll also get around to writing up how to record the streams through VLC. (Not so much a hint: Just get a Mac, and you can save the streams directly from the MLBTV window to .qt with the flip4mac wmv plugin.)

Feel free to leave any questions in the comments, and I'll answer when I get back to work from lunch.

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Comments

How well does this system work?

by BrianL on Jul 10, 2008 10:37 AM PDT reply actions

I personally love it.

It allows me to have 1 up on my TV, 4-6 or so each on my second and third screens, and all my normal computer related stuff on my main screen. I used to struggle trying to open different instances to get more than one window up, and could even then only fit 2 or so on a screen.

I can see it working really well for anyone. You can shrink it down so you can fit it and LL on the same screen, have more than one game w/o using mosaic, and it runs a lot more efficiently than the WMP or plugins do. Even if you only do one game at a time, it’ll pay for itself in resources saved over WMP or all the flash in the browser window.

I’m not a good test case, as my slowest computer is a quad-core, 4GB of RAM, 10k HDD, but I’ve never had it crash anything, and my GFs machine (dual core, 2GB RAM) has never had a problem once I stopped telling it to redirect everything and just redirect the WMP stuff.

by Faux on Jul 10, 2008 11:21 AM PDT up reply actions

Same system specs I'm running, I should be fine.

by BrianL on Jul 10, 2008 12:05 PM PDT up reply actions

you can save the streams directly from the MLBTV window to .qt with the flip4mac wmv plugin.)

How does one go about doing this?

The poster formerly known as Matt.

by bluemax on Jul 11, 2008 8:52 AM PDT reply actions

If you have flip4mac installed, it should be playing your MLBTV.

At least it does this in Firefox (I don’t know about Safari). In the bottom right corner, there is a triangle pointing down. Click on this, and choose save as quicktime movie. It’ll save everything that was cached as a qt.

This means you can’t just start the download and save the stream right away, you have to sit through whatever you want to record and then save after.

This also means you have to up your quicktime cache to get a whole game. Honestly, when I go about recording games I know I’ll want to save (all Felix’s starts, opening day next year, etc), I do an inning or two at a time, and just restart the stream in the time between innings.

This reminds me, I have to go back and find Opening Day and the Boston game from last year.

by Faux on Jul 11, 2008 10:56 AM PDT up reply actions

One caveat.

There are some problems with the Flip4Mac and watching MLBTV. When you first load up, it’ll wait a good 5-10 secs or so to start playing. You’ll be tempted to jump ahead and put it as close to live as possible. Don’t do this.

When the cached data gets close to the end of the time bar, it’ll automatically add more time and shrink the cached data bar. It’ll take a second or two for the current time (and the indicator) to realize that fact. This means if you are watching right up to the edge of the caching, it may decide that it has reached the end of the video and stop the player altogether.

The caching also adds another benefit (especially to people that like to scorekeep, like myself). You can go back and re-watch past plays or pause, DVR style.

by Faux on Jul 11, 2008 11:08 AM PDT up reply actions