MLB TV and Roku question

dfecarter

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Mar 14, 2006
491
39
Connecticut
Hi,
This baseball season I think I will try MLBTV.COM instead of MLBEI through Directv.
I have the HD Roku box and am trying to figure out if the MLBTV basic will work with Roku or do you have to subscribe to the MLBTV premium service?
If the basic work with Roku, then what is the difference between the two? Does the basic give you HD games?
Thanks!
 
So MLBTV Basic will work with ROKU. Great!
Do you know if I can stream in HD? I don't have any interest in the VOD or the app for smart phones, nor the ability to watch home away broadcast.
As long as it work on Roku and is in HD then I'll go with the basic for $110 rather than the $125 for premium.
 
So MLBTV Basic will work with ROKU. Great!
Do you know if I can stream in HD? I don't have any interest in the VOD or the app for smart phones, nor the ability to watch home away broadcast.
As long as it work on Roku and is in HD then I'll go with the basic for $110 rather than the $125 for premium.
it does HD Here's alink WARNING WARNING Roku does NOT support all the features listed MLB.TV. Baseball Everywhere. | MLB.com: Subscriptions
 
Actually I just signed up for it today for my PS3. It specifically says you need a premium subscription to use it on devices like the PS3 and roku this season
 
Yeah that's the impression I got too but thought maybe they were just pushing the premium, maybe I'll give em a call...thanks!
 
Just read the FAQ page and it does state premium is required for ROKU. now of I could trick MLB.com onto thinking my ip was in the midwest id be able to watch the red sox in real time. Just thinking out loud....

Ross

Sent from my rooted DROIDX (Liberty Gingerbread) using SatelliteGuys
 
Ok, I wanted to test out MLB.TV quality on my PS3 because I have never had it before so I watched Verlander's no hitter against Toronto from last season. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on my first experience with the service for people who are thinking about buying it.

First, the picture quality was good for the most part. It definitely had more artifacts than FS Detroit on Dish but most of the time it was close enough. If it looks like that all season it will definitely exceed my expectations. It was comparable to the Netflix 1080p streams on my PS3 for almost the entire game. My only real gripe was that it wasn't as consistent as Netflix. About 3 or 4 times during the game it turned into a horrible blurry mess that is far worse than Dish SD. This only lasted for about 30 seconds at a time and I can live with but it would be nice if they could get it as rock solid as Netflix. I'm hoping they are just working kinks out because it was the first night of the 2012 package and it will improve during the season.

When I watch Netflix HD through my PS3 the quality is solid and people watching with me would have no idea that I'm watching an internet stream. If my first test of MLB.TV turns out to be the norm you couldn't say the same thing about this service. The quality is very good for the vast majority of the game but those 3 or 4 times the quality dropped took away from the experience a little bit.

Second, I put a lot of money into my sound system. When I watch TV or movies sound is just as important to me as picture. That being said I wasn't expecting bluray quality sound from this streaming service. The sound wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. I was happily surprised to see that my Onkyo receiver was getting multichannel PCM 5.1 from the PS3. FSN Detroit doesn't use the rear channels but this gives me hope that this service is capable of using them for channels that do take advantage of them.

Overall I think it is a good value for me. Dish doesn't have EI so it is a no brainer if you want out of market baseball. If I had Directv it would be a closer call but I think I would still go with MLB.TV and save the $90. If they don't change anything quality wise it will be acceptable to me. If they can get it to stay at its top quality like Netflix does throughout the entire game I will be extremely happy with my purchase. I do have 20mb cable internet service so my internet speed should not have been the problem.

Edit: One small thing I forgot to add. It would be nice if they would edit out the commercial breaks on archived games since they aren't actually showing any ads anyways. Every time the game went to a commercial they showed a blue screen that said commercial break in progress for a couple minutes. I understand why this is necessary for live games but it seems a little dumb to look at a blue screen for 2 minutes every half inning or pitching change for a game that was on May 7th. This isn't a huge deal to me because 90% of my use will be for live games but it doesn't seem like it would be that hard for them to edit out the commercial breaks on archived games.
 
Just read the FAQ page and it does state premium is required for ROKU. now of I could trick MLB.com onto thinking my ip was in the midwest id be able to watch the red sox in real time. Just thinking out loud....

Ross

Sent from my rooted DROIDX (Liberty Gingerbread) using SatelliteGuys
not last year
 
Thanks for the info guys! I emailed them over the weekend and will probably hear back from them tomorrow.
Sounds like I'll have to go with the premium level, even though I have no use in the smart phone feature.
If anyone comes across any discounts/deals on sub to MLBTV PLEASE do share!!
 
Note that you may be in the Yankees black-out area, I'd recommend asking them. Since I'm in the south, I can watch most of the NYY games, however games involving the Orioles are blacked out.
 
Note that you may be in the Yankees black-out area, I'd recommend asking them. Since I'm in the south, I can watch most of the NYY games, however games involving the Orioles are blacked out.
I've bought it the last 3 years on my roku , mlb has had alot of steaming issues , it's got better , still far from perfect , they black out every game of your home team , no matter where they're playing , on the weekends they sometimes black out most of the other teams too , leave you 1 or 2 games to pick from . I paid for post seasons , my home team the card's , they where all blacked out . unless you like watching games after they're over , you might not be happy .
 
All live post season games are blacked out in the US regardless of where you live.

I was still able to watch the WS on my iPhone and iPad through my normal subscription because I used a location spoofer to fool MLB.TV into thinking I was in Mexico.
 
Well I already get all of my local baseball teams on my RSN's (Yanks/Mets).
But I'm a pretty big baseball fan and like to track the rival teams such as Soxs, which I don't get. But it is less of a no brainer as in the past with games on ESPN, TBS and MLB Network but still might go for it. I tried getting a deal fro MLBEI but they wouldn't budge.
 
I tried it on my Roku box last year and it sucked..Ps3 is nice, but I did not care for it..Im thinking about using apple tv for it this year. I heard its pretty clean and the lag iis few and far between..
 
I tried it on my Roku box last year and it sucked..Ps3 is nice, but I did not care for it..Im thinking about using apple tv for it this year. I heard its pretty clean and the lag iis few and far between..
From what I have read the PS3 is still the best streaming device for MLB.TV. Many have said it makes a huge difference in PQ when streaming live baseball.
 
Well we'll see how the Roku 2 XS does with the PQ. Am not about to buy a new device, if only Directv would give me a deal on their MLBEI package!
 
***

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)