MLB TV Picture Quality

. . . anyways the moderators keep saying oh restart this, try that. but nothing is working. I think it's just over use with their late season discount they offer. . . .

,

All of this "non-response" response reminds of the "parable" situation: People standing about, one accidentally drops something, and there are three reactions: Ignore, Pick-up, Notice But Do Nothing. Certainly none of the players (Apple, Cable, MLB) have offered "Picked-Up" - acted positively and helpfully, offering guidance. If they notice they offer generic pablum excuses and vague fixes. None indeed have the integrity, honesty, to serve the need of those in the quandary they perpetuate by their inaction. Too greedy and corporate-chicken to serve their customers and cooperate and render and explanation, solution, or take responsibility.

All of this arises from an absence of real competition, and an overriding "conscious parallelism" of government supported (by legislated antitrust immunity or supervening market regulation) oligopolies, which cooperate in the ancient ritual distraction of "bread and circuses."

Meanwhile, the media advertising juggernaut gains mass and momentum with replay challenges; and, the attending ballpark fans devolve into a "studio audience", a paying "CGI backdrop" for TV, and TV home/mobile-viewer has a new "video game", that thrives on disputatious, metaphysical distinctions of movements that have been blinked for decades, and now passes of "real and true" But, now of course, the gamblers and casinos are secure, and the next generation won't realize much, if any, difference. We are all destined to a digital demise.

"Same as it ever was."

I'm experiencing the exact same thing. It seems like it started happening in the past few weeks. I have an AppleTV 2 and an AppleTV 3. Both have awful picture quality, hang, and are virtually unwatchable. Resetting and restoring don't fix the problem. I am able to watch the same game, on the same network, in near perfect quality on iPad, iPhone or desktop computer just fine. Network bandwidth tests on the AppleTV don't indicate a problem and my wireless reception is "excellent." This is clearly an AppleTV problem from MLB.

To top it all off, MLB has started consistently showing commercials between innings. AppleTV seemed like the last outpost of serentiy where the silence between innings was a feature worth the cost of the service. Add obnoxious, repetitive commercials to the lack of quality from mlb.tv and it is all plain unacceptable.

MLB: fix the picture quality.

Apple: Make them dump the commericals.

I agree with this entire 2 year long thread. Until MLB and Apple fix this there is a not so perfect work around.

I use my iPad to stream MLBTV on AtBat and Airstream to my ATV. Much better quality than direct streaming to the AppleTV.

I just posted something similar. For me it seems to have only gotten horrible in the last week or so (I was thinking it was somehow related to the Apple TV update but maybe I wasn't watching enough last week via Apple TV to catch when it started accurately). At any rate, it is unbelievable. In the past it would usually "work itself out" after a minute or two and then remain relatively stable. Now it starts off poor and only gets worse. I am also just watching via the iPad and Airplay. It looks fine and works but it does **** me off that I have to do that. What is the point of the service if it doesn't work? MLB does not seem interested and Apple certainly doesn't pipe in on these threads typically so they can't be too concerned either. Very annoying.

I t-h-i-n-k I learned something from Netflix's decision to pay Comcast to better stream their videos. Before, Netflix had an intermidiary, Cogent Communications, who distributed their streamed signals to Comcast and other ISPs. Comcast was throttling receipt of signal from Cogent during prime time when Comcast's broadband pipes were being overloaded. So, Netflix has paid Comcast to accommodate streaming direct from Netflix, bypassing Cogent. And, in return for payment, Comcast will engineer "last mile" delivery capability of un-throttled Netlfix signals directly to Comcast customers. What does this have to do with MLB.tv buffering and pixalating problems? Maybe, nothing. But, it may explain why, to MLB it's "not my problem," and to Apple it's "not my problem" and you've got a rotten signal while you're getting sufficient download speeds from your ISP. The problem may be the ISP throttling MLB's signal, during prime time, as received from MLB or an intermediary distributer. Could be Netflix has shown us the solution. That is, MLB needs to pay ISPs the cost of engineering "last mile" streaming speeds to its customers.

Uncle

A very considered response - thanks. Unfortunately, in my case I suspect it's not really relevant, for a couple of reasons:

1. I live in deepest, darkest Australia where, I suspect, I'm one of not very many people that has an MLB.TV subscription. Peak time in the US is actually early to mid-morning my time, which won't be peak time as far as my ISP is concerned.
2. I can actually stream the same game on my Mac via Safari and on my Apple TV simultaneously. The Mac quality will be perfect while the Apple TV quality is awful. Hence the workaround for the problem, of pushing the Mac stream to the Apple TV via AirPlay, is an OK workaround, except that it obviously ties up the Mac to allow me to get decent quality on the Apple TV.

All this leads me to believe the problem more than likely sits with Apple, in the way that Apple TV processes the feed. And Apple's motivation to fix it is not strong given it is already getting its revenue stream from MLB, which presumably, is not tied to the number of people who subscribe (or more importantly, elect to unsubscribe) to MLB.TV.

The other option could be that NexDef really does significantly enhance quality and Apple TV needs an equivalent. I suspect this proably isn't the case though.

BigFella99,

Interested in joining a Yahoo fantasy (roto) baseball league? Here's a blog with explanation of our scoring metrics: http://gashouseleague.blogspot.com/2014/02/2014-gashouse-league-scoring.html

Sorry to post this here on an Apple technical issue forum. But, I found no way to contact you directly. Email me at foulpops@yahoo.com if you're interested.

(Apologies to those following this discussion thread.)