[nfbcs] Fw: MLB - Figured It Out!

[Mike Freeman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Mike Freeman 
To: Lainey Feingold 
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2010 10:25 AM
Subject: MLB - Figured It Out!


Dear Lainey:

I have figured out the MLB Media Center streaming links. The "problem" I was having with the audio from the page http://mlb.mlb.com/mediacenter/ was, strictly speaking, not a problem butt a "feature". Before explaining, let me stipulate that the Accessible GameDay Audio (reachable from the Media Center page as a link or as the default GameDay Audio from the Narrowband HOmepage) works as advertised. Now to the Media Center whose link is shown above.

The table of games has, as you will see, both TV and GameDay (At Bat) Audio links for each game, at least for those of us with all-access. In all cases (both for currently-streaming games and for archived games), the TV links bring up the fancy accessible Flash Media Player (the one with the REWIND, FAST FORWARD, PLAY/PAUSE, MUTE, ARCHIVE, TODAY and VOLUME buttons), assuming that the game one wishes to watch is not part of one's blackout zone.

The fancy Flash Media Player described above is *also* brought up for archived GameDay Audio games from this page. (That's *fantastic* for fast-forwarding through the commercials!) AS the MLB site notes, processor load is fairly intensive for this Flash application. Gives something for my computer fans to do. (grin)

The "rub" comes in when one clicks on a the At Bat GameDay Audio stream for a game currently being played from the Media Center page. I wrote you that the audio didn't come up. I was right and I was wrong. The actual situation is as follows: there is a "Log In" link from the Media Center page. When one clicks on this link, a "Log In" frame expands with fields for email address and password and a "Submit" link which logs one in and updates the log in frame. If one has *not* logged in via this frame before clicking on a GameDay Audio link for a currently-streaming game, this frame expands and, as described, one logs in. Once this is done, the audio comes up.

Here's the tricky part: if one *has* logged in *before* clicking on the audio for a game currently being played, one must go back and find the "Log In" link and click on it *again* for the audio to come up.

Once the audio comes up, the player is kind of neat -- no volume controls (but then MLB didn't have them for GameDay Audio till now anyway) but there are radio buttons which, when pressed, allow one to switch between the various streams for the game being listened to.

I realize this won't be of interest to most of your ACB MLB GameDay Audio subscribers but for those of us with All Access or whatever it's called now, it explains why the audio links for currently-live-streaming games appear not to work -- one must click on the "Log In" button to make them play, whether or not one has logged in. If one is already logged in, the audio comes up. If one is not, the Log In frame comes up and after being filled out and the form submitted, the audio comes up pretty as you please.

Incidentally, I've touted the fancy MLB Media Player to several people as being one of a very few Flash apps that really are accessible (the CBS Radio Play.It player is another).

I promise: I won't bother you any more with this one. But figured you'd want the explanation. Simply put: the audio of live games on the Media Center page requires one to click the Log In link to get it going even if one has already logged in.

Have a great day.

Mike