The story behind MLB ditching Silverlight

Here’s a story about the reasons why MLBAM ditched Microsoft Silverlight as the streaming video platform for MLB.com. Lots of technical stuff if you care, but this passage interested me the most:

The other major issue was that baseball considered Silverlight too unstable. There were some high-profile glitches, including last year’s opening day, which saw many MLB.com subscribers struggling to log in and others who were unable to watch games. The malfunctions lasted several days. The rift between Microsoft and MLBAM began to grow and hasn’t stopped, said the sources, adding that lawyers for each side are still arguing over Microsoft’s responsibility.

Arguing lawyers is a good thing in this case. It means there’s big money at stake now and big money to be made in this world later, and that’s ultimately good for baseball. And, I might add, good for people who have in interest in the delivery of baseball content on the Internet.

[cough! cough!]


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Chris H.
14 years ago

I also like the fact that Flash runs on more platforms (e.g. Linux).  Flash is even coming to my Android-based phone; watching baseball on my phone would be way cool.

lar
14 years ago

As someone who is relatively knowledgable when it comes to computers and technology, I had very little reason to care about a switch from Silverlight to Adobe. To me, they both work well enough. I can see why MLB would want to use something that people don’t need to install to use, that’s for sure.

But if they really got upset because of Opening Day issues last year, then they might be doing the same thing next year. It’s working well enough for me today, but there have been problems. I’ve been listening to the Reds-Mets game most of the afternoon, and that’s worked fine. But I did switch over to the Rangers for a bit, and I kept losing the audio. And I’m still not sure it’s fixed.

They’ll work it out, though. the first day that you have to worry about hundreds of thousands of users, there’s always going to be problems. I don’t feel like I’m wasting my $15, though.

David Rasmussen
14 years ago

Last year, I never once succeeded at getting baseball to run on my Nokia 810 Wifi device.  This year it works.  It still takes most of an inning to get logged on, so I am not declaring victory yet.

Melody
14 years ago

Agreed—it takes way too long to log on.  It never seems to remember me, and instead continues to ask me to upgrade my subscription instead of simply letting me watch the game.  Sometimes I’ve had to switch browsers in order to make the @#%(# thing work.

I have to say, I do remember when they first started playing with this platform, and the audio at least was available for every game for free… all of it has gone up every year since.  Ah well, the price of progress.

Will
14 years ago

I agree with Chris. I live in the so-called market for the Rockies, so I can’t watch them. Even though they’re not broadcast here and I don’t have cable.

If I could watch the games I’m interested in, then I’d spring for MLB.tv, but as it stands, I’ll keep listening to the radio or the Gameday Audio.

Matt S.
14 years ago

I have been watching games on MLB.tv for three years now and I thought the difference with Adobe was HUGE. The picture quality was more consistent, and vastly improved, and it stuttered far far less often. The first two times I signed in I had big delays signing in through Mozilla firefox, but not with Explorer. Today, I was able to watch multiple games at once through the advanced service, no problems with firefox, no delays signing in. I’m loving the Adobe platform 100%.

david
14 years ago

i had trouble listening to the audio of today’s games. 2 games in particular, tex and then ana did not work.

at least it’s only $15, but my confidence level is not very high.

pault
14 years ago

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/audio/podcast/

eh? *no* major league audio podcast? sorry, the fantasy one doesn’t count…

David Rasmussen
14 years ago

So, now to get audio to work, I need to load the latest version of Adobe Flash onto my Nokia 800 device.  Guess what?  I already have the latest version.  So, once again, MLB upgrades their product so that it is useless to me. @#$%^ MLB.

Chris H.
14 years ago

My biggest issue with MLB.tv is not the technology but the stupid blackout rules.

While I’m intrigued by the idea of watching out-of-market games, it would be much more useful to me for watching IN-MARKET games, say, in the office or on my phone.

This, of course, all ties back to the goofy MLB blackout rules that the owners seem to care little about.