Walt Mossberg answers tech questions for Wall Street Journal reader each week. One such Q&A caught our eye:
Q: I just bought a new Mac and I love it, but I am a die-hard Yankees fan and I find that, with the Mac, I can’t watch Major League Baseball’s streaming Webcasts of games. Is there a way around this?
A: Since I am a huge Red Sox fan, I hesitate to help you … but I will.
It doesn’t work, because MLB.com this year switched to a Microsoft video format that the Mac version of Windows Media Player can’t handle and it doesn’t support the Safari Web browser that Apple includes on every Mac. There is a workaround: download and use Firefox, instead of Safari; and download and install Flip4Mac, a free program that allows QuickTime to handle the newest Windows Media video format. You can get it at: http://flip4mac.com/
But even this solution is seriously flawed. The problem — and the Flip4Mac people are working on it — is that it plays only for a few batters or so, and then you have to restart it by relaunching the TV feed in the Web site. This is a pain, but it does work, sort of.
A better solution is to simply run Windows on your Mac, and then play the MLB videos on that. I do this using a product called Parallels desktop, which runs Windows inside a window on your Mac. It’s available at: http://www.parallels.com
Full article with more questions and answers here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wrong and wrong! The answer isn’t use some half-baked workaround or run some half-baked OS, the answer is for MLB to use a proper cross-platform video delivery method. QuickTime is one answer that springs immediately to mind. The problem here isn’t Macs, the problem is MLB.com and their bad decision to ghettoize Mac users when perfectly reasonable cross-platform answers exist.
Let’s ask MLB.com why they don’t value our business (by the way, you might remind them that Mac users have higher incomes than Windows users on average – you know, to pay for those box seats) and why they have idiotically chosen a video streaming technology that doesn’t support the personal computer users that are actually the most capable of buying MLB products. Contact: http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/help/contact_us.jsp
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Demand QuickTime! Apple’s QuickTime-based iTunes shows massive growth, to pass RealPlayer soon – March 16, 2006
I called the number and spoke to them why are they practicing COMPUTER PLATFORM DISCRIMINATION and this sort of behavior has gone out of MLB a long time ago.
Apple is a over 20 million strong platform that MLB is ignoring. Windows Media Player and IE is no longer being supported by Microsoft for our platform so Mac users are being slowly shut out by Microsoft retaliation.
Apple has over 150 stores around the world and selling tens of millions of Mac computers and can’t see MLB’s content.
If MLB wants the widest amount of people watching their content, they need remain platform and video format neutral and support the three most used video formats, WMP, Real and Quicktime.
You’ll need to write to:
MLB Advanced Media, L.P.
75 Ninth Avenue, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10011 USA
I mailed them…
Why did you lot switch to that loser Microsoft to stream webcasts? What about the 20 million Mac users???? Quicktime is a better format, and doesn’t discriminate.
And I loathe bazebol!! Football, with the feet only.
“Couldn’t the page where the link is located be password protected? Then you could use whatever format you wanted.”
You could do that but then you run the risk of that password being shared with others. If you are trying to have a money making stream that will not be abused and is restricted to one user and one computer then that is not a viable option. Bandwidth for streaming cost a lot of money and you don’t want non-paying users piggy-backing on someone else’s password.
“[…] I am a die-hard Yankees fan […]”
What he really means is “I like to watch those guys in pinstripes who have won all of those championship thingys. I have no idea what I am talking about, but associating myself with a winning club makes me think I am a winner, too.”
Now go look in the mirror at that “L” on your forehead, Walt.
You might also ask why the BBC makes life so difficult for Mac users.
I can’t even get their ‘Listen again’ widget to work.
Ho hum.
Bud Selig is a FSCK NUT!!!
MW: language – as in “watch your language there, Cubert!”
The broadcasts may work well on PowerPC based Macs (which is debatable by the way), but even then you have to deal with the annoying “This browser is not supported.” “Click the “Proceed” button below to accept this.” message.
I hate that and if MLB doesn’t provide Safari support by next season…I’m not renewing my subscription.
Remember the 80″s when some whining baseball player complained that he couldn’t make ends meet on $350,000 annual salary? I suppose that a wife, 5 girl friends, and a coke habit could be expensive. I decided not to follow baseball after the 80’s – it’s hard to feel sorry for people in the 97th percentile of U.S. annual income who complain about how little money they have.
More and more sites, including government sites, are becoming IE-only sites or provide media only in Windows Media Player format. This is a huge problem. If anyone knows of any organized efforts to combat this, please post them.
This is not akin to “iTunes proprietary”, which is available for the top two operating systems (all of the mainstream consumer OSes). This is about access to information and services that is being limited to one OS and its proprietary media format.
the answer is to switch to watching the most pedantic sport, NFL games. You know that sport where each game lasts 3 hours or more with only between 15 and 20 minutes of actual game play. Each play lasts about 3 to 5 seconds at most then everyone takes a break and we can see the preious play again from every angle… now that is exciting. I love those 14-7 scores which is really just 2-1.
This makes me sad. Now my batter ain’t up.
The new beta web mail page for ATT/SBC – Yahoo! subscribers is also excluding Safari users.
I watch MLB.com’s broadcast using flip4mac and it works fine on safari on my power pc mac and on the intel mac. The ads don’t work, and blink incessantly, but I just shrink the window to just allow for the video to show. Don’t wanna look at the ads anyway. The video cusor runs to near the end and then just continously refreshes as the game is played. No problems on Safari except for the previously mentioned post about having to click on the “browser not supported” button.
It also worked with firefox until the last flip4mac upgrade. Now it does what is described.
BTW.. I’m fairly sure that the “contact us” page on MLB that MDN provided the link to accomplishes absolutely nothing. I had issues earlier in the year when I switched to the intel mac, and tried for weeks to get help through the email contact us page. No answer. I finally was able to get through on the phone support line. After the problem was solved I told them about the numerous emails, and the person on the other end of the line flatly admitted that those email are rarely if ever checked… and never responded to.
JIM:
The problem is that Microsoft is unwilling to license their DRM technology to any other media players or even allow that technology to be used in their own Media Player for Mac.
Sounds like Apple not licensing Fair Play for other mp3 players, doesn’t it ?
Now now now.. don’t get me wrong.. I’m a big MacFanBoy like everyone else, but this issue is one I’ve run across before.. where the only way to see content is to have Windows.
And while I think MLB should make peace with it’s Mac users, now, all they have to say is “Use the great tools Apple has provided you, Boot Camp, and run Windows on your Mac”.
A refrain, I’m afraid, other developers will be singing as well.
hey diamond…
baseball is 10 minutes of action packed into a three and a half hours of game time. ANd when I say football I mean the real thing – not the wussy European game that can almost look baseball look exciting. Maybe if they added head butting into the game as the players raced home you might have something. Until then the test pattern on my TV is far more exciting. Come on football season!
MW but – but who *cares* about MLB
Baseball on an Ipod. Now theres a date. It would feel like you were watching “It’s A Bugs Life 2”
Baseball on TV or Streaming Media or whatever sucks.
Baseball live, in the stadium, sitting behind home plate or out in the bleachers or wherever … especially in an old stadium like Yankee Stadium or Fenway, maybe even listening to the game on AM radio if the announcers are old style — describing the play by play instead of sounding self-important
… that’s baseball.
Watching Mark Fidrych pitch to a house so packed the Tigers had to open the Third Deck — box seating that was essentially on the roof … that was baseball. Ballparks with irregular dimensions and center field walls that went out to 440ft or 480ft … that was baseball.
The game today is such a bore to watch because it’s been so homogenized. Going to a ballpark to watch the game, tho … there is so much more than what’s going on between the batter and the pitcher and announcers sharing personal anecdotes about when they talked to the pitcher in the elevator two seasons ago … if you want to see baseball, go to the park in time to watch batting practice, buy a scorebook or bring your own and keep score, and don’t forget there’s more to the Game than the game.
Who cares if Windows Media Player streams it in a proprietary format. Go over the box scores in the NY Times the next day. There are more important places to fight the good fight against proprietary M$FT garbage than streaming MBL media.
I only subscribe to the MLB gameday Audio and I have serious issues with it. Actually, up until July 5, it worked just fine. After that, I have to log in to mlb.com click a couple of times to choose my game, acknowledge Safari isn’t supported, and wait to see if I get the game or the spinning beach ball. Ususally, I get the beach ball and force quit Safari 6 times before it starts to work. I have to use the wmp plugin (not f4m) and configure wmp independently so it is “just right”. No other configuration of wmp or f4m in any other browser will work. My best results acutally occurr if I log out of my OS X account and log back in. It is a pain in the ass, and I usually miss an inning or so in the process. But eventually I get every game.
serves me right for wanting to watch White Sox games in Vermont. even after I paid the $15 to mlb.com, I am considering getting a $15 3 month XM subscription just to avoid the hassle. Then again, I have no idea if XM’s web based broadcast works well on my Mac either.
iMac g4 1 Ghz, 1.5GB RAM, 10.4.7
If my reply wasn’t clear, Walt’s proposed workaround does not work for me with my gameday audio subscription.
We apologize for your inconvenience.
To fix the feed problem you are having you will need to
launch your windows
media player seperately through your applications and open
“Preferences.” Under the “Network Settings” tab, be sure to
deselect “Multicast, UDP, and TCP.” “HTTP should be the only
checked protocol with “No Proxy” checked right beneath it.
Next click to the “Connection” tab, and choose the connection
speed that you have, then click “OK.”This will improve your feed.
If you have anymore questions please feel free to contact us
at:1-866-800-1275.
Thank you for writing us.
Regards,
JC,MLB.com Support
I just used yasu and mlb.com gameday audio worked straight away. No forced quits.
A bunch of rich spoiled brats strike for more money, a union that does not support there farm leagues (were the real players are) and dow they only support windows so they can profit by spreading spyware onto unsuspecting fans…. Football is the true American Pastime.