NBA League Pass and ATV

There is a work around trick I found so that it's possible to watch NBA games from the league pass app on iphone/ipad using 'Airplay' to the AppleTV.

It actually seems to work with all other apps too that currently do not have 'Airplay' enabled.

The way I got it to work is, you Airplay a movie from your iphone/ipad that was actually purchased form the iTunes store, converted movies don't seem to work.

Once the movie is playing on your apple tv via airplay, just exit the app and go straight to the NBA app and start playing a game, the game should then start playing via airplay direct to your apple tv automatically.

Now, if you stop playing the game you can't just start up again, you will need to go through the process from the beginning for it to work again otherwise it just wont stream to the apple tv.

It's not ideal but it does work so hopefully you can at least enjoy this for now until apple and NBA get their act together and let international league pass work with the NBA ATV2 app or enable streaming within the NBA iphone/ipad app.

Just a question related to NBA on ATV2, but not regarding ILP.

I have the official NBA channel among my youtube channel subscriptions. http://www.youtube.com/user/NBA

Then I go (in ATV2 menù) to Internet, Youtube anche browse to my channel subscribed, then inside NBA channel.

Now I find all the videos as I were behind my imac browsing in youtube, but with ATV2 the videos are without any chronological order. I hoped this was solved with the last firmware, where the changelog was:

"YouTube video order: Addresses an issue in which YouTube subscription videos were not ordered by date."

I updated the firmware but the video in NBA channel have no chronological order yet and it's impossible to see the last playoff videos!

Is this happening to you too???

Just wanted to give you all an update on this:

Today I've subscribed for ILP on NBA.com as it finally became available for the upcoming season.

Since I'm located in Germany I had to switch to the US iTunes store on Apple TV to make the NBA channel available on the aTV interface.

When I entered my login credentials I've received the same dumb error message, claiming my password was wrong.

That said, it appears that the NBA and Apple still don't want to make the NBA available for the European market… or should I say for the European TV viewer. We are allowed to watch games on our MacBooks, iMacs, iPads and iPhones, but when it comes to the real pleasure, watching games on a big TV screen in your living room, you are shown the red flag.

Seriously, what are these stupid restrictions good for? Why can't we enjoy basketball on TV, whilst paying for the appropriate harware and the not too cheap league pass subscription?

NBA, Apple, please fix this thing ASAP!!!

Do you know if with iOS 5 and the mirroring fuction you can stream from an iPad2 to your ATV2 in an acceptable quality.

We purchased full broadband pass yesterdayIN THE USA and we cannot log onto Apple TV either. Apple TV is working fine but when we try to log into NBA, it fails just like what you described.

I don't think Apple TV or NBA is ready for the season. And there is no one to contact.

I emailed them at nbatvsupport@neulion.com and they said:

Hello,

When the application is released for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad you will be able to use AirPlay to view the games on your Apple TV. If you have any more questions please let us know.

Thank You

NBA.TV Support

So, we won't be streaming via apple tv? We will be tuning into game on computer or ipad and selecting airplay to send picture and sound to the apple tv/television? Hmmmm. Not sure I like that. Two things now that can go wrong. One, internet buffering issues and two, if airplay loses signal, youre out of the game. And airplay does lose the connection at times. Not much at our house but I have read a lot of comments about trying to use airplay speakers to listen to itunes library and it being interupted frequently.

Well, we will see. Rather just use Apple Tv direct connect to internet for streaming games vs. using airplay.

But, we have no choice i guess

thanks for all the info

Been mirroring my NFL content from iOS 5 device (iPad2 and iPhone 4S) to the ATV2. Works well. Should work for your NBA too:

http://theapple.tv/2011/11/07/nfl-on-apple-tv/

and

http://theapple.tv/2011/10/05/iphone-mirroring-for-apple-tv/

http://theapple.tv/2011/12/21/nba-season-on-apple-tv/

Thanks for that link, cthurs, that article makes it sound like if you have US League Pass, you can watch directly thought the ATV, and only if you have International LP will you be required to stream through AirPlay from another device. Still very frustrated about the lack of information coming from the NBA on all the LP issues (including when we'll actually be able to try logging in to see if our account works).

Hey guys,

Just to contribute my experience. I have an NBA Broadband Choice subscription and my AppleTV has been stuck on last year and there has been no pre-season coverage. More importantly, like everyone here is complaining, there is just no customer service literature as to what the heck is going on.

I created a support ticket to cancel my broadband subscription, assuming that I'd just pony up a little more cash to Comcast for the full League Pass and be better safe than sorry.

This was their response:

"The League Pass Broadband product will be available with Apple TV this season. You will just have to download a program around December 23rd. We do apologize for not having pre-season coverage but it has not been offered in the past few years."

The thing that is inconclusive here is whether it'll be as easy as last year, or if it'll be using AirPlay via a subpar iPod, iPad or iPhone signal like some of you are hypothosizing. I don't know honestly. Just thought this might help the conversation.

this is their answer to me regarding NBA Pass BROADBAND

"NBA.TV does not have a Apple TV application and what you are looking at is the application for the US League Pass which is different product. NBA.TV does not have any plans to release an Apple TV application however we are always looking to expand the viewing experience. When the application is released for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad you will be able to use AirPlay to view the games on your Apple TV. Where are you located, if you are outside the US this is not available to you. If you are outside the US then you need NBA.TV as this is the subscription for International use. As stated earlier NBA.TV does not support Apple TV and that is a US application. This US application will not work Internationally. If you have any more questions please let us know."

Veeeery saaaaad 😟

if the cable company here offered it, that would be hands down the choice.

true HD and reliability. but that is not an option everywhere. 😟

so, its like duct taping it all together to try and see the games for the rest of us.

i guess the games on apple devices will not be dependent on Flash Player as in year's past,

or there will be no pictue to even AirPlay to the Apple TV/tv.

nba.com/appletv has just changed the page to say that Apple TV and League Pass will be available this season, but they do not tell you how it's goingt to work. if its AirPlay, which most folks are not even familiar with, there are going to be some unhappy campers when they find out they need an iPhone, Ipod Touch or Ipad (running at least iOS 4.0 or later).

A bit of new information. Today (Saturday, 12/24), ATV finally lets me log in without the authentication error (the ID is your email address, not your user name, and you do need to sign up for All Access first on the NBA.com website). So that's one big step. All the games for the 26th are listed under Games, but they're all greyed out at the moment, I guess they won't be active until they start, which makes sense. It certainly looks like you can watch the games directly from the ATV (why have the games listed otherwise?), I don't think this area is just for the display of scores because why I click on a game I get the message "The video for this game is not available yet.", the key word there being video. Furthermore, I have yet to see any app that will stream games from another device, either on the Mac App Store or on the iOS App Store. There is the NBA Game Time app, but it only works for NBA LP BB "Mobile" accounts.

So I am really hopeful that we can watch the games directly streaming to the ATV, at least for US accounts, which is what makes the most sense anyway. This page shows ATV as "League Pass Enabled", and I don't see what the point of that would be if not to watch the games. The preseason highlight videos are now active on the ATV, and the stream quality looks decent but not outstanding. It does appear to be 720p HD, although there are some rather heavy compression artifacts and smoothing present, and I'd say it's not up to MLB quality streams. I'd describe it as being somewhere in between 480i SD and cable-quality 720p HD. But on my 50" plasma, it's good enough to see the action and make out individual players, and the scores/stats are sharp.