Play Ball
The baseball season kicked off in high gear yesterday and Major League Baseball launched its MLB Extra Innings package for 2009 with a free preview of the package on DirecTV and many cable providers around the country.
DirecTV is offering fans up to 80 games a week with up to 40 of them being in high definition.
The DirecTV MLB Extra Innings free preview runs until April 12th and can be found on channels 720 – 749.
XM Satellite Radio also kicked off their coverage of the 2009 MLB season. Every game this season can be hears on XM Satellite Radio. However XM was unable to come to a deal to make the MLB games available to Sirius satellite radio customers as well.
A number of folks were under the belief that Sirius would gain access to the MLB games this year as Sirius now carries the MLB Home Plate channel in the “Best of XM” package, however the version that airs on Sirius is different then the XM version and airs different recorded shows when there is a MLB game airing on the home plate channel.
For those baseball fans that don’t subscribe to XM nor are not home to watch the games on DirecTV or cable you are not out of luck. Major League Baseball has a new application for the iPhone call MLB AT BAT 2009 which lets you listen live to all the games on your iPhone! Best part of this is the cost to enjoy the entire season is just $9.99!
Where is Cartoon Network HD? (UPDATED)
Today a question that has been asked of me a lot is “Where is Cartoon Network HD on Dish Network?”
When I started getting these questions I logged into my Slingbox to check my Dish Network receiver at home, and Cartoon Network HD was still there so I emailed the folks back who contacted me telling them I could still see Cartoon Network HD and to check their setups.
A few moments later those folks emailed me back and told me that Cartoon Network HD was removed from the list of channels that Dish Network carries in its TurboHD packages.
I went and checked DishNetwork.COM and indeed it was gone.
As the afternoon has gone on more people have contacted me about this so I have in turn contacted Dish Network. UPDATE: Dish Network just contacted me and said it was “an error on our end, the channel is available and we are updating dishnetwork.com now.”
I could see why people were concerned, as last time Dish Network removed channels from its online website just a few days later the channels were removed from the Dish Network lineup as well… anyone remember VOOM?
Now that we know it was just a mistake we can all rest easy knowing that you will be able to watch “Adult Swim” in HD. 
Now the question is where are the Viacom channels that were supposed to be added last week?
Stay Tuned!
Rey commented:
It still amazes me how dish network is being run.Making mistakes like this is inexcusable.I'm glad everything is ok with CNHD. For the poster that wrote about the Directivo HD by this fall,it's now scheduled for 2010.
Reaper commented:
Play Ball: I switched from DIRECTV to FiOS a few months ago and I'm glad I did. A compelling reason to stay with D* would be for NFL Sunday Ticket. Also, while FiOS offers MLB Extra Innings, they do not have as many games in HD as D* (they use InDemand like cable companies). FiOS does have a lot more movie channels in HD though. And the quality of the HD and SD channels is superior to D*.
Oh, I also had Dish Network until they dropped the VOOM Networks. I'm glad that I dropped them, although they do have the best equipment. I think that you're wrong that the second generation DirecTivo will be better than Dish's HD DVRs. They are really exceptional pieces of equipment.
makracing commented:
Of course, if you have the great Dish Network,not only can you not get MLB Extra Innings,you can\’t even get the MLB Network.Now if I can only make my mind up between Fios and Direct.
Fred Farrar commented:
Actually Scott, DirecTV lists 59 games in HD this week, with more than 30 of them available from each team\’s RSN in HD.
I just checked the InDemand (cable) HD schedule and it shows 12 games this week.
Paul commented:
I love reading this blog. Every time I read about Dish I realize that for all of DirecTV's faults they still run circles around the programming that Dish offers. I can't wait for DirecTV/Tivo HD DVR to come out in the fall. That could hurt Dish pretty bad.
Scott, to follow up with your post regarding improving Dish and getting better advertisements, I couldn't agree more. Dish runs what looks like low budget local commercials. It doesn't do much to attract somebody to their services even though I hear that there boxes are light years ahead of DirecTV.
Reaper commented:
Great tip on the iPhone app Scott! At $9.99 for the season, what a bargain! And it works over AT&T's Edge network so it works on my original iPhone. Dude!