Notices

I tried getting the latest mlbviewer running on my Linux setup, but could not get it to work. No point in me trying to make the NIT's mlbview_gui work if I can't get the Linux version working. At this point I think I'm going to try to install Diablo and see if that flash player will work, or at least launch the media player correctly.

I've upgraded to Diablo. It's still looking for a newer version of flash. How did you get it to launch in the media player?

Looks like MLB has a mobile service, for iPhones, Blackberrys and Windows Mobile
http://mlb.mlb.com/mobile/audio.jsp?c_id=mlb

I tried this link:
http://m.mlb.com/gda/index.jsp

I logged in and clicked on a game.
Nothing happened, I clicked the "nothing happens in 30 seconds" link and I logged in again. I then clicked a game link and the NIT's media player opened and I was listening to baseball!!

The only problem is, I can no longer listen to games on the NIT. I got one chance to listen. Your PC game day audio subscription isn't valid for mobile access. I now get a message asking me to subscribe. You must subscribe to a separate mobile package for another 2.49 a month. The people running MLB are very greedy.

That stinks. So if you do pay the extra $17.43 it will work on the NIT?

I've canceled my PC Gameday Audio subscription and subscribed to the Windows Mobile Gameday Audio package. We'll see if I get a refund from my original annual payment. I canceled by phone and subscribed through the web site. I don't need archived games (which you don't get with the mobile package) There was some buzz I read where the mobile package had archived games last year.

Bookmark this link:
http://m.mlb.com/gda/index.jsp

It's not the best solution. I have to log in twice to listen. Go to this link, click on the game you want, log in when prompted. (The first time may be free, but after that it will prompt you to subscribe for $2.49/month) Click on the "if nothing happens in 30 seconds" link. Log in again. The NIT's media player opens and plays the game.

You must remember to log out if switching games, because otherwise you'll be locked out - logged in to too many locations, or some such error. The log out link is not in an obvious location. Go to any page other than the one you see after starting the audio stream. Click on "Account Settings". Click Logout. Then go back to the link above and pick a new game. Maybe you don't really need to do this between games, but I had to call MLB support to unlock my account, and don't feel like testing it again.

Also, I couldn't find any page that directly links to the URL listed above, so bookmark it.

Thanks for all of the follow up ehovorka, I finally have 2 computers running linux (openSUSE) with scratchbox installed so I can start trying to mess with the mlbviewer stuff. I did get rtmpdump to compile for the armel processor but haven't had a chance to try things out. It looks like dafcat has the audio working on the computer for *most* games though some appear to glitch for him.

MLB really complicated things by changing the interface again. Really, for the greater linux community it works better, because it runs on the major desktop distros, but it still doesn't run on the less common distros. At this point the guy who writes mlbviewer seems content to try to get his app working, but when it fails to launch the flash player directly. Since we have a version of flash 10, I wish that they would let us use the full functionality.

The mobile link seems like a compromise, but a decent one. If I were you I'd look to see if I could bookmark the logout link, so that you could just go to a bookmark for it. Also, could you post the address of one of your games here, I might be able to launch the browser directly to the mobile site, or adapt the app to find those streams instead.

Summary: I have a lot to look at this weekend...

This weekend I'm going to take a stab at having your front end work with a different backend: using the mlb mobile feeds instead of the flash feeds. The mobile streams are from an mms url, so I should be able to parse that out and launch mplayer (already tried it by hand on a PC and it works). There's a bunch of info available in xml files (not only game times, but in game stats) and the mobile web pages are small and easy to parse.

But, it's supposed to be nice outside this weekend in Seattle, so we'll see how motivated I am to work on a computer :-)
Plus the Cubs are on ESPN Sunday, so there goes another 3-4 hours.

Looking forward for the MLBViewer working on my N810 . . . love listening as I house manage.

I've got an update to mlbviewer_gui.py and mlbtv.py that works with Windows Mobile Gameday Audio subscriptions. I'm so excited, I'm using my NIT again to listen to baseball!

I have added a config file entry "mobile=1" to indicate the mobile package. I am currently listening to the Mariners, but I've been switching between games without problems. I set my audio_player=mplayer.

I'm not sure how we want to handle the code management here. My changes to mlbviewer_gui.py and mlbtv.py should be safe to merge with the main code base. I added code to read 'mobile' from the config file and if it is missing, I let the old code run. I should probably contact daftcat and see about getting mlbtv.py merged in the main mlbviewer tree.

hvacengi owns mlbviewer_gui, so he can decide if he wants to keep these changes. I have put the two files and instructions for installing them on one of my websites (there is no .deb installer, you have to do it manually).

http://www.bramblesoft.com

Remember, the regular Gameday Audio package will not work with this package. You must subscribe to the Windows Mobile Gameday Audio package for $2.49/month. I canceled my regular audio subscriptoin and now just have the Mobile package.

NOTE: You have to subscribe to the Windows Mobile package through your browser, not through mlbviewer.

NOTE: The Windows Mobile Audio package only has live games. No archived games, no condensed games, no video, no highlights.

Thanks ehovorka for your info


I am still quietly hoping that hvacengi can get mlbviewer working again

But it is nice to know that a backup solution is here

Thanks to both of you guys for your efforts !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!