They Have The Right Idea
Yesterday the Saratoga, California based Roku Corporation announced and launch an update for its popular $99 Roku player that puts all other IPTV devices to shame.
Roku was one of the first devices that would allow you to enjoy instantly streamed movies from Netflix and Amazon.COM video on demand services. But yesterday they did something which is going to make a lot of sports fans happy (especially Dish Network customers) and that was they announced the addition of live Major League Baseball games from MLB.TV.
MLB.TV is an internet based video service that allows you to enjoy live and archived games on your PC and now with a Roku box you enjoy the games on your televisions and if your internet connection is fast enough you can even watch them in full high definition.
To enjoy the MLB Extra innings package on DirecTV this year it would have cost you $189, however Major League Baseball revamped it’s MLB.TV with new technology and charged only $109.95 for the full season of games.
With the Roku box baseball fans can enjoy the rest of the season for only $39.95.
While the MLB.TV games are subject to the same blackout restrictions as satellite and cable companies it makes games available to fans who could not see their out of market teams play. Dish Network use to carry the MLB Extra Innings package but dropped it due to the low subscriber count and the high costs for the package. In addition when Dish Network did carry MLB Extra Innings many games were not shown, as Dish Network did not have agreements with some sports networks such as the Yankees YES Network.
Now from the looks of things Roku worked with Major League Baseball to make this MLB.TV content available to their customers. However since MLB.TV is Internet based how long will it be before other receivers that are IPTV based add MLB.TV icons to their menus.
The perfect candidate for this would be Dish Network’s Slingloaded ViP 922 DVR which was announced earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics show. The receiver, which is basically a computer that runs a custom version of Unix and has built in satellite tuners, would have no problem being able to display IPTV from MLB.TV. The question now is would MLB allow a company like Dish to make it easy for their customers to enjoy the MLB.TV service?
My feeling on it is if its on the internet its fair game. Dish by adding an icon to MLB.TV would be sending traffic and customers to MLB.TV and would not be profiting directly as Major League Baseball would be billing to Dish customers to access its service.
And while it sounds simple, it would not see these kind of unofficial IPTV partnerships end up in court, after all why would DirecTV or the cable companies pay all kinds of money to be able to offer the MLB Extra Innings package to its customers if a company like Dish makes the internet IPTV version of the package available to its customers with a simple on screen link on its satellite receivers.
The folks at ROKU have the right idea here and from the people who have been using the service the picture quality is very, very good. Now people wanting the MLB package can get it without switching television providers. That to me is a great thing and a win win all around for consumers.
RokuUserFromNJ commented:
The Roku box that I have was the best entertainment investment that I have made. The MLB.TV quality is amazing. DirecTV and other cable providers are going to be sorry because of this little 99 dollar box. If roku would add a service like Hulu, I would cancel my television service in a heart beat.
Reaper commented:
Fred: You could stream HD through the Roku box with a 5mbps connection. I have 20/10 with FiOS so no worries there. The games are not in as high a quality as on DirecTV though. MLB HD games on DirecTV are 1080i and only 720p on the Roku box. Additionally, they are very heavilly compressed - and it's quite noticable. Still they're quite watchable and a good alternative to those of us who do not have DirecTV as our TV provider.
RobertS commented:
MLB.TV HD is served up at 1.2mbps and you need a subscription to MLB.TV premium (IIRC, in 2009 at the beginning of the season it was about $90 for MLB.TV and $120 for MLB.TV Premium).
I have gone with MLB.TV Premium the last several seasons because it's quite a bit cheaper than DIRECTV, MLB.TV has every game, not just games shown on RSN's, and MLB.TV has access to archives, something I never got on DIRECTV because DIRECTV does live games only when I was a subscriber. No regrets dumping DIRECTV on their #$%@ and going MLB.TV internet. I just ordered the roku box to make my MLB.TV experience better and I"ve been stoked for 2 days now about the Roku/MLBAM announcement.
Fred Farrar commented:
What kind of internet speeds would a subscriber need to be able to watch the games in real HD, Scott?
One o the beauties of the MLB EI package on DirecTV is that almost every game is in HD, and the vast majority of them are available from each team's network.
I would think the internet speed to allow such access via this new box would have to be far higher than most people now have -- and will also be far more expensive than a typical 10 or 20 mbps setup.
So you would have to add that cost to the mlb.tv subscription price, wouldn't you?
I have both the mlb.tv and the MLB-EI packages (through DirecTV) by the way. And the investment is well worth it for six months worth of games.
Reaper commented:
I love our Roku box and subscribed to the rest of the baseball season on MLB.TV yesterday. My wife is an out of market Yankees fan and she's going to love watching their games in HD on our Roku box. We have FiOS TV and, although they offer MLB EI, the cost is higher than MLB.TV and most games are not delivered in HD. The Roku is a great alternative.
