When the details for the 2008 MLB.tv subscription packages were announced, I noted that the products on offer were predominantly the same as those from 2007 (including the price); however one of the few changes MLB.TV subscribers will notice this season is the new media player.<\/p>\n
MLB.com are leading the way in embracing Microsoft Silverlight, using it to embed video clips into their standard web pages and now using the tool to bring you their main multimedia content. They are selling this as a new \u00e2\u20ac\u0153enhanced\u00e2\u20ac\u009d media player. Is it an improvement on the old one?<\/p>\n
For those of you who haven’t yet subscribed, MLB.com are helpfully providing a demo<\/a> of the MLB.TV service on their subscriptions page. (As a post-script warning, I had the demo running in the background while writing this article and it stopped working twice \u00e2\u20ac\u201c forcing Internet Explorer to close on both occasions. I’ve watched the best part of three live games using this new media player so far and have encountered no such problems, so it looks like it’s a bug linked to the demo rather than something that should put you off subscribing).<\/p>\n The new media player gives you three different viewing options available via a click of a button. They don’t have official names so I will call them widget mode, minimalist mode and large-screen mode.<\/p>\n All three modes include a ‘score’ strap line above the video screen (note: by video screen I mean the box containing the actual video footage). You can choose to hide the score, although this doesn’t get rid of the strap line, it just blanks the text out. Now, generally the video streams will have the broadcaster’s score strap line superimposed already so in a lot of cases this may seem to be a slight waste of effort; however, regular MLB.TV subscribers will know that some of the video streams are taken directly from the ballpark and in these cases you often do not get all of the superimposed features (score, inning, number of outs, men on base etc) that you take for granted and miss badly when they are not there. This has been extremely frustrating at times so overall the addition of the score strap line is welcome. (Note: in the demo, the scoreline just gives you the final score and, unlike in the ‘real’ version, doesn’t update as the game progresses).<\/p>\n Let’s look at each of the viewing modes in more detail.<\/p>\n ‘Widget Mode’<\/strong><\/p>\n The first option utilizes the functionality of Silverlight the most. You get a decent sized screen with the option to add additional widgets around the outside. Currently there are two extra sources of info you can add in:<\/p>\n a boxscore, which can alternate between showing the actual live boxscore (give or take a slight delay) or the starting lineups and benches.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The inning-by-inning score board<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n You can add them in or take them away with a click of the button and you can move them about via the standard click and drag method. It’s probable that over the course of the season, more widgets will be added.<\/span><\/p>\n The widget mode also has four other buttons you can click to navigate your way to other content. They are all self-explanatory: Today’s games, Sights and Sounds, My Team and Show Related Links. This is fairly standard, useful stuff, but the smart part is the way in which the menus slide open and closed, with the screen automatically shrinking\/increasing in size accordingly. It’s very smooth, although in the demo there is a one second delay while the menu loads up (this isn’t so pronounced in the ‘real’ version).<\/span><\/p>\n ‘Minimalist Mode’<\/strong><\/p>\n The minimalist mode, as my nickname suggests, keeps the screen the same size as in widget mode, but strips away most of the additional features to produce a more compact player. You still get the advert strap line at the bottom of the player and the score strap line, although the font size is a bit small in places.<\/span><\/p>\n ‘Large-screen mode<\/strong>‘<\/span><\/p>\n The large-screen mode takes away most of the additional features (including the advert strap line) and then increases the size of the video screen. This takes up approximately 85 per cent of your actual monitor screen, which is why I called it large-screen mode rather than full-screen. Pressing F11 in this mode does take it to about 95 per cent, although the constant presence of the score strap line means you cannot quite take it up to 100 per cent. You could put the video on genuine full-screen mode in the old media player, but the difference is minimal so I don’t count it as a mark against the new player.<\/span><\/p>\n The picture<\/strong><\/p>\n The Spring Training games are being streamed in the basic 400K and switching between the new player and the old player (which you can still access) there doesn’t appear to be much, if any, difference between the picture quality. The new player does look ever so slightly sharper to me, but I might be imagining it! There certainly isn’t much of a difference although I can’t say I expected there to be one.<\/span><\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n So the picture isn’t obviously enhanced, but the media player certainly is. The score strap line is a useful bonus, although it would be nice to have the option to get rid of it completely. The large-screen and minimalist modes offer you a genuine choice to fit the player on to your screen to suit your other PC usage at any given time. The real ‘enhanced’ part of the media player is the widget mode, which will enable you to customize the features around the video screen and to access other content smoothly. MLB.com’s development work with Silverlight was highlighted here<\/a> back in May last year and their demonstration proves that the current range of available widgets is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s clear that not only is the current version of the media player an improvement on the previous effort, but that there is a large amount of untapped potential for us to look forward to over the coming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the details for the 2008 MLB.tv subscription packages were announced, I noted that the products on offer were predominantly the same as those from 2007 (including the price); however one of the few changes MLB.TV subscribers will notice this season is the new media player. 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