Level 1

11 points

MLB TV Picture Quality

After yesterday's announcement, I excitedly ordered MLB.TV to watch on my AppleTV 2nd Gen.

Picture quality was a disappointment. Watched 2 spring training games. Detail was very poor, even on a game that was widescreen (presumably HD?). Motion is very stuttery, as if the frame rate is low.

My downstream bandwidth exceeds 17Mbps, and Netflix and Apple rentals work fine.

Anyone else tried it yet?

BTW: MLB.TV says it can be cancelled "at any time", but the fine print says you can only get a refund in the first 5 days!

Posted on Mar 10, 2011 6:30 AM

Top-ranking reply

theroys88

Level 1

0 points

Posted on Apr 2, 2011 7:11 PM

The reason the quality of the picture is not comparable to Sat or cable is that those services stream those games with a bitrate ranges from 16-91mpbs/second. MLBTV maximum bitrate which is stated on their website is 3mpbs/second. With those low bit rates you will see a highly compressed signal. I am having similiar video and audio issue with choppy audio and video. This atop the compression artifacts that jump at you with any fast motion. These streams have 5 to 6 times the compression as a sat or cable HD feed. **** a standard dvd has a bit rate of 6-8mpbs. Have called MLBTV and the level 2 tech agreed and told me that the current bit rates were designed for computer streaming and not large screen HDTV sets. Received a email from MLBTV stating they are currently working on raising bit rates for streaming devices. I would encourage everyone who is not happy with the servicce to call MLBTV and complain about the low bit rates. State my numbers to them. I have called several times and no tech has argued that I was wrong. They all agreed and apologized. I can tell you that the audio and video choppyness that I am experiencing is a MLBTV app PS3 issue. I can stream MLBTV through Playon and the stream is clean. Only 480p and still full of compression artifacts but no audio or video stuttering.

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187 replies

Apr 3, 2011 8:21 AM in response to Atavist

I tried calling MLB tech support after getting a "tracking number" from my email issue complaint...I said "i have a tracking number here" and the woman said "oh I dont need that"....the best she could do is have me power cycle everything...guess what?...it didnt resolve anything...surprise!...still intermittent pauses and stutters...gonna be cancelling MLBTV it looks like...everybody else..DO THE SAME unless they fix this fast or post something to the effect that they are aware of the problem and working on it...also, Apple needs to wake up and do something as well...you're about to get hit with a backlash from lots of people who are baseball fans and really want to like this product the Apple Tv...

Sincerely,
Losing Hope & Disappointed

Apr 3, 2011 9:42 AM in response to Macaby

actually i'd say for the few seconds where the picture does go into the best quality that it looks excellent--looks better than SD quality to me---if that was the quality all the time, i'm totally satisfied with that...but it's such a tease...cause then it resumes the freezing every 10 seconds..

caa100 Author

Level 1

11 points

Apr 3, 2011 12:40 PM in response to caa100

Lots of these posts point to an even worse problem the poor picture quality. Many of you are reporting that the live games pixellate and freeze. I've experienced that myself for the first time today, and it is so bad that I find myself longing for the "poor picture quality" of Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Urgh!

Atavist

Level 1

5 points

Apr 3, 2011 2:14 PM in response to baseballcrazy1

baseballcrazy1 wrote:
UPDATE: getting a much improved quality on appletv now......about a 100% improvement from yesterday's unwatchable experience...anybody else seen an improvement today?

Yes, much improvement over first three days of the season. Viewed a half inning of Sawks/Rangers and then an inning Halos/Royals: Pixilation is minimal and freezing only occasionally - much less often than previously regular freezing. Perhaps, this is "answered prayers", and MLB is increasing the bit-rate and otherwise adjusting, over the weekend.

Apr 3, 2011 2:32 PM in response to lso20022002

we need to keep on them...in order to justify paying for the service, there should be no pixelation or freezes...hopefully it will improve...right now i only signed up for 1 month...if they get it nailed down, i'm happy to subscribe for the season and i know a lot of people will be happy!
..i'm sure it costs them $X to increase the streams X Mbps, so they are probably trying to find a sweet spot which will enable the AppleTV to properly buffer the signal and the freezing and jitters will be eliminated

Apr 3, 2011 2:44 PM in response to caa100

I thought things were better now that there were fewer games on. I was watching the A's for about 30 minutes with no problem. Then it froze. I decided to see how long it would take to come back without me doing anything...

The Apple TV screen saver came on over the frozen video before it resumed playback. That's not good!

Hopefully this is just opening weekend kinks, otherwise I won't be renewing next month.

Atavist

Level 1

5 points

Apr 4, 2011 11:12 PM in response to Atavist

{quote:title=Atavist wrote:}
Well, one step forward and one step backward. With one game on now - Tigers/Orioles: It's as bad as last week: bad pixilation and frequent freezes on both my Apple TV and MacBook, which had been flawless.

!@#$%^&*

One step forward again . . . tonight games were acceptable, albeit they had a number of momentary freezes and slight pixilation, so overall not "bad." So, at present it seems uneven - one step forward - one step back - then a three-quarters step forward.

Message was edited by: Atavist

Apr 7, 2011 3:53 PM in response to jeffpdx

I agree. Something really needs to be done to fix this issue. So far, I haven't been able to find a comment from either the MLB or Apple regarding this whole thing. It's terrible. MLB.tv works great on my Macbook Pro anywhere in the house. My AppleTV2 is RIGHT next to my wireless router, and still can't get a good enough buffer to stream clearly. Now that I'm stuck with it, something better happen FAST, or MLB is about to lose A LOT of customers.

Apr 9, 2011 5:41 AM in response to baseballcrazy1

Things have been working great for me all week. I think the test will be over the weekend when more people are watching.

I'm not too concerned with the video quality. I don't expect it to be as good as HD cable because it's streaming video and a different technology than cable. For me it's much bbetter than SD, and about as good as hD so I'm content.

For the bit rate, I saw somewhere they reccommend a 3Mb connection for the nexdef viewing, so you can assume the bit rate is comfortably below that. Keep in mind bit rate isn't everything. Cable is coming in as Mpeg2 vs Mpeg4 on MLB. Mpeg4 has much more efficient compression, and I would guess 5Mb would equal a cable feed with decent compressor. But then you would have more connection problems at the higher bit rate so its a trade off. Plus I think my cable company would cut me off if I was downloading 15
Mb for 4 hours/day 5 days/week!

Apr 9, 2011 9:02 AM in response to Matt Larson2

Matt Larson2 wrote:
Things have been working great for me all week. I think the test will be over the weekend when more people are watching.

I'm not too concerned with the video quality. I don't expect it to be as good as HD cable because it's streaming video and a different technology than cable. For me it's much bbetter than SD, and about as good as hD so I'm content.

For the bit rate, I saw somewhere they reccommend a 3Mb connection for the nexdef viewing, so you can assume the bit rate is comfortably below that. Keep in mind bit rate isn't everything. Cable is coming in as Mpeg2 vs Mpeg4 on MLB. Mpeg4 has much more efficient compression, and I would guess 5Mb would equal a cable feed with decent compressor. But then you would have more connection problems at the higher bit rate so its a trade off. Plus I think my cable company would cut me off if I was downloading 15
Mb for 4 hours/day 5 days/week!

so if your cable company did cut you off for downloading 15mb over the course of 4 hrs, 5 days a week (of legitimate content no less), and there was no advertised cap on your service would you also be as content and accepting of that as you are of MLB.com not being able to provide what they advertise as "HD quality"?

i for one am not nor would not, as are many other people here. i expect what is advertised to me and i subsequently pay for...

Macaby

Level 3

923 points

Apr 9, 2011 9:28 AM in response to fatcat585

fatcat585 wrote:

Matt Larson2 wrote:
I'm not too concerned with the video quality. I don't expect it to be as good as HD cable because it's streaming video and a different technology than cable. For me it's much bbetter than SD, and about as good as hD so I'm content.

Plus I think my cable company would cut me off if I was downloading 15
Mb for 4 hours/day 5 days/week!

...would you also be as content and accepting of that as you are of MLB.com not being able to provide what they advertise as "HD quality"?

i for one am not nor would not, as are many other people here. i expect what is advertised to me and i subsequently pay for...

I would have to say that MLB made a mistake in advertising this product as "HD quality". They should have said "near" HD quality. For the most part, I find the picture to be very close to HD with occasionally some blurring which quickly snaps back to a sharp picture.

Would I accept this quality of service from DTV? NO, I wouldn't. However, since this service is streaming, I can accept it. My wife's son has FIOS TV and I personally think it ***** the few times I've seen it. Annoying intermittent pixilation in parts of the screen. This is another streaming service.

I watched the Red Socks/Yankee game yesterday and it was fine. However at about the 55 minute mark, the screen froze for about 3 seconds and then quickly snapped back to the action. That was the only time it happened while I was watching. That is not to say it might have happened again during a bathroom break.

Macaby

Level 3

923 points

Apr 9, 2011 10:02 AM in response to fatcat585

I didn't realize Extra Innings had a streaming option. While I don't share your experience, I think maybe MLB.tv may be throttling their stream through Apple servers (if this service in fact does take that routing) or perhaps to protect their prime iTunes rental market, Apple is throttling the service.

Still, for the most part, I'm completely satisfied with ATV2 and MLB. I never expected it to be as good as Extra Innings although at half the cost, to watch a few Red Socks/Yankee games and a few others during the year, it floats my boat.

Apr 9, 2011 6:43 PM in response to David Parker2

Things improved a lot on Thursday for me... there is still a lot of pixelation during motion (notice I didn't say fast motion... pretty much any significant motion on some games) and games with bright sunlight seem to be a little worse, but no freezing since Wednesday night. Some archived games still won't start on one feed (Cards-Giants home feed Friday night), but the other feed always has, so I haven't missed a game. Not perfect, but much much better.

George_T

Level 1

5 points

Apr 10, 2011 12:51 PM in response to frank grimes jr

Things have been much better this weekend for me and aTV. The previous problems with not being able to pull up archived games has disappeared, and my streaming of live games has been without any freezing or other major problems. Still get a little pixilization at times, but this has improved as well compared to last year. PQ is a little lower than a HD feed on my 58 in. Samsung plasma, but I can live with it, esp. given that the streaming option is $100 cheaper than MLB EI through DirecTV.

Apr 11, 2011 8:35 PM in response to lunaharpua

I too have had MUCH improved quality the last 4 or 5 days, with only one or two games having the same issues I've had (freezing/halting picture, etc) in the past. The quality isn't quite HD but it's more than good enough. Hopefully it keeps up!

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MLB TV Picture Quality