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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Cyber Cynic

MLB.com looks great on desktop Linux

13 comments

TAGS:baseball, desktop linux, Flash, Linux
IT TOPICS:Desktop Applications, Internet, Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems, Software

If you visit MLB.com and look to see if you can watch baseball games over the Internet, you'll be informed that you'll need Windows or a Mac to watch them. Wrong. Any modern Linux desktop distribution will let you keep up with your favorite team.

The key is that MLB has dumped Microsoft's Silverlight for its real-time video in place of Adobe Flash. While you can view Silverlight video in Linux via Moonlight and Moonshine, it's a lot easier to just use Flash on Linux.

So, the first thing you should do is install Flash on your desktop. If you elect to go with Adobe's own, but proprietary Flash player, you can either download and install it from the Adobe site or get a copy of the open-source Gnash Flash player. Both programs are also almost certainly available from your Linux distribution's software repositories.

If you're going to shell out the extra money for the HD-version of MLB.TV, you'll want to go with Adobe Flash. Gnash is approximately equivalent to Adobe 9, and some of the features of the high-end version of MLB.TV requires Adobe 10 functionality.

In my case, I'm currently using the newest Adobe Flash on my main desktop, which is running MEPIS 8, a Debian 5 desktop Linux. The computer itself is a Dell Inspiron 530S. It has a 2.2GHz Intel Pentium E2200 dual-core processor with an 800MHz front-side bus, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB SATA drive, and an Integrated Intel 3100 Graphics Media Accelerator. I'm connecting to the Internet with AT&T DSL running at 6Mbps/512Kbps.

The result looks great. I'm seeing the game in real-time. I rather wish I weren't since the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are doing terrible things to the Boston Red Sox, but that's baseball. The HD broadcast is sharp, without any hesitations or pauses.

It's not as good as my DirecTV MLB Extra Innings subscription on my Sony HDTVs, but it looks darn nice on my computers. And, what's more important, I can watch games on my office PCs while still getting work done. I don't know about you, but I have real trouble getting work done on a laptop or a netbook in front of a TV. For some reason, I am able to watch baseball on a PC and still write in my office.

Before clicking over to start your MLB.TV subscription you should know that the system has had its problems, regardless of what operating system you're running, and MLB has fouled up recently in how it's handling those troubles. You may also not be able to get your local team's games or any games at times, due to baseball's archaic blackout rules. That said, for me at least MLB.TV is working well. Play ball!

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Gnash Devs and Linux Fund Raising funds for improved features

Submitted by ilan on April 27, 2009 - 12:44 A.M.

As Steven mentioned Gnash support is equivalent to Flash 9. There are some desirable features that are still being developed.

If you are enjoying Gnash and want improved support, consider contributing to the Linux Fund's bounties for RTMP support, OpenStreetMap Editing, and improved YouTube playback.

http://www.linuxfund.org/projects/gnash/

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Rays being mean to the sox

Submitted by red floyd on April 13, 2009 - 5:32 P.M.

I rather wish I weren't since the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are doing terrible things to the Boston Red Sox.

You say that like it's a BAD thing!

Seriously, though, I'm thrilled that MLB had dropped Silverlight.

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"Tampa Bay Rays," not "Devil Rays"

Submitted by Anonymous on April 10, 2009 - 9:33 A.M.

They changed their name a couple of years ago. I'm a computer geek, but my 12-year-old is a baseball geek, so this one's for him.

MLB's blackout rules render MLB.TV useless for me, unfortunately. Their ads say , "watch every game," but the reality is that you can't watch the home team because their games are blacked out in their market.

So I listen to the Red Sox on the radio. I'd gladly pay for MLB.TV if we could watch Boston play, but there's just no way I'm shelling out hundreds and hundreds every year for cable service just to see them. It's OK: the more I listen, the more I admire the radio commentators. And I might be less inclined to make the trip to Fenway if I could see every game at home.

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Even NExDef is working in

Submitted by Nik on April 9, 2009 - 9:02 P.M.

Even NExDef is working in Linux this year. To get the HD quality video you'll need it. It's a bit of a pain because mlb only offers support for Mac and Win but NexDef is actually a java program that can be extracted from the Mac dmg. Luckily somebody did the hard part http://www.bodly.com/autobahn.jar. Download it and you can run the jar from the terminal.

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Wow - it sure took people a

Submitted by Anonymouse on April 9, 2009 - 7:52 P.M.

Wow - it sure took people a long time to figure out that Silverblight gives them a smaller audience, not a larger one. I don't even know any MSWin users who think anything good of Silverblight; the only pro-blight articles I've seen were from obvious MS 'evangelists'.

Silverblight: another also-ran from Microsoft. I'm not too crazy about Flash either - for one I'm never comfortable with proprietary stuff, and on top of that I absolutely HATE those websites that require Flash just to view them. I think we need a W3C standard for audio/video encoding and streaming and we also need more web designers who have the intelligence to pitch at a larger audience and not only those who have half a billion extra gizmos installed just to view a web page.

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smil

Submitted by Anonymous on April 19, 2009 - 7:54 P.M.

We have a standard it is just ignored

http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/

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Amen.

Submitted by Richard Chapman on April 10, 2009 - 12:16 P.M.

You've got my vote.

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Now if only NetFlix would

Submitted by Anonymous on April 9, 2009 - 6:55 P.M.

Now if only NetFlix would get a clue and dump their efforts to shove SilverLight down subscribers throats.

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Let them know

Submitted by Ken Jennings on April 10, 2009 - 6:14 A.M.

Yesterday Netflix put up an entry for comment, "How Would You Improve Netflix's Windows or Mac Streaming Player?"

Go to http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2009/04/how-would-you-improve-netflixs-windows-or-mac-streaming-player.html
and let them know they should dump Silverlight, use flash, and support linux.

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Baseball, Silverlight, and Other Blights

Submitted by Ron on April 9, 2009 - 6:37 P.M.

Thanks again for the Linux-related info, SJVN. I tried (unsuccessfully) to watch NCAA tournament coverage on Silverlight, my travails are documented at my blog (linked in my name). As for baseball, its blackout rules, perhaps last appropriate circa 1972, are one of many reasons why MLB is the most horribly run successful professional sport out there. Put some brains in charge who would highlight the tradition of the game, purge any steroid-related records, and make accessing the sport more user-friendly, and it would leave the NFL in its distant wake. In the meantime, it can't do anything about its most blatant cheats who have used drugs to obliterate honest records.

At least it dumped Silverlight.

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