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Why the hell is the MLB thing on UK ATVs? Baseball has about as much interest in the UK as Tiddlywinks. Why don't get we get BBC iplayer or something useful like that?

Yeah I've done some googling and MLB seems to be Rounders, while NBA appears to be Netball. It's great that they're available to watch on ATV2 for people who like them, but here Rounders and Netball are played by schoolgirls while boys play football or rugby or cricket.

Or are Apple just happy to take £99 (approx US$150) off us and then not bother their backside doing anything else?

It's £101 now! Anyway, don't update your ATV2 and keep it jailbroken. I have iplayer on mine...
 
NBA league pass is cool but they need to stop this blackout thing. I live in San Diego and I can't watch a laker game because of KCAL in LA. That's stupid.
Also I think national televised games like on ABC, ESPN and TNT will not allow ATV to show it.

If they fix that I might finally ditch cable for good.
 
See, I guess I'm just old, but give me baseball over the radio any day. I just can't get excited about any of the MLB's attempts to modernize the delivery of the sport.. It's a feel, more than anything.. A matter of taste, similar to preferring some books in dead-tree form, and finding others superior in ebook or audiobook form.. Just as I prefer an old Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, or Nick Carter book in dead tree, I prefer baseball over the radio..

I agree - although I do like broadcasts on TV with the local broadcasters (Fox & ESPN bleh!), there is something nice about baseball on the radio - I use the MLB At Bat app AirPlayed to my Apple TV with the score on the screen now (the new features are useful!), especially since it does give visuals if I pay attention to something else and miss something.

Now, a random question, but has anyone figured out why some score boxes are blue and some are grey on the home screen? At first I thought it was AL/NL...nope, then Cactus/Grapefruit...nope. It doesn't correspond with the score or of the game is in-progress or not (I'm writing this at 2am after checking). I suspect it's going to be something simple, but I haven't figured it out...
 
This is my issue. I don't have cable and most White Sox games are on Comcast Sportsnet. I can't watch over half of the season. I would pay $120, hell $200-$300, for the ability to stream games. But it's worthless to me because of crappy blackout rules.

And yes, the home markets are still utter ****: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MLB_Blackout_Areas.png

I agree - where I live is a no-man's-land in the middle of Indiana that MLB considers Cubs/Reds/White Sox "home" territory. The local cable companies and satellite only offer FSN Indiana, which is actually the same feed as FSN Ohio 99% of the time (except for Pacers games), so the only Cubs games I could watch are those carried on WGN, ESPN, Fox, or when the Cubs play the Reds. I work with a White Sox fan, and although we trade jabs, we can at least agree that it stinks only being able to watch Reds games. Still, WGN has kept our sanity, so I guess it's better than nothing.
 
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SpinDrift said:
Bring BBC iPlayer to :apple:TV!

Please Apple! Everyone else is doing it!

I'm not exactly short of devices to watch iplayer (iPhone, ipad, ps3, wii, iMac, TiVo, and built in to the tv itself) but that makes its absence from Apple TV all the more glaring.

I like the airplay feature of Apple TV but so far the PS3 is a better TV device for UK customers (although I know it's more expensive). Features included:
- LoveFilm
- iPlayer
- itvPlayer
- 4od
- HD film rentals and purchases
- PlayTV for freeview and PVR
- DLNA network playback
- photo viewing
- and of course bluray and games.

Come on Apple, you need to close this gap.

James
 
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I'm excited about this. As a born and bred NY Yankees fan living in Texas, I've been subscribing to MLB.tv since I moved here from NY.

I work nights, so most of my baseball watching comes on my phone. But I just love having the option to watch baseball on my phone, iPad, Mac, and now Apple TV.

As far as blackouts go, I can understand everyone's frustration. I'm fine never having to watch the Astros play...but the Rangers games are also blacked out in Houston, so when the Yanks play the Rangers it's a no go. Super annoying.
 
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I'm not exactly short of devices to watch iplayer (iPhone, ipad, ps3, wii, iMac, TiVo, and built in to the tv itself) but that makes it's absence from Apple TV all the more glaring.

I like the airplay feature if Apple TV but so far the PS3 is a better TV device for UK customers (although I know it's more expensive). Features included:
- LoveFilm
- iPlayer
- itvPlayer
- 4od
- HD film rentals and purchases
- PlayTV for freeview and PVR
- DLNA network playback
- photo viewing
- and of course bluray and games.

Come on Apple, you need to close this gap.

James


Couldn't agree more. I love the interface of my Apple TV, but functionality wise my four year old PS3 blows it out of the water for watching/streaming video over the net.
 
Couldn't agree more. I love the interface of my Apple TV, but functionality wise my four year old PS3 blows it out of the water for watching/streaming video over the net.

Also agreed - I love the features of the PS3 (LoveFilm, iPlayer, 4OD), but much prefer the interface and AirPlay functionality on the Apple TV.
...if only they could.. *does the David Brent finger meshing gesture*

Oh, and if they could get the Apple remote to work like a Wiimote or PS3 Move (not as a pointer necessarily, but for gestures) that would be awesome.
 
Couldn't agree more. I love the interface of my Apple TV, but functionality wise my four year old PS3 blows it out of the water for watching/streaming video over the net.

Agreed. Got an Xbox myself however it runs alongside a Humax HD-FOX T2 box (freeview HD recorder). From the one TV I can get:

All freeview channels (Humax)
BBC iPlayer (Humax)
Sky Player (Humax & Xbox)
YouTube (Humax)
Any network media (Humax & Xbox)
iTunes Media (Humax & Xbox)
Xbox Movie Market (Xbox, duh!)

The XBox is also launching LoveFilm (UK equivalent to NetFlix) soon.

Compare that to the ATV in the UK:

iTunes Movie Rentals (at double the price the US pay and pretty crap HD quality @ 720p IIRC)
iTunes playback
Local network playback.

See the difference here? When you can pick up a second hand Xbox 360 for £70 which has Sky Player (library of hundreds of films updated monthly, all free as part of a sky subscription) it makes the ATV at £100 seem overpriced for a fancy looking network media player.
 
Netflix performance is much better

No idea why, but wait times for some content on Netflix is vastly shorter after the iOS update. Also most content used to pause after the first 5 seconds, then continue. Not any more.
 
You're forgetting resale value

[...] See the difference here? When you can pick up a second hand Xbox 360 for £70 which has Sky Player (library of hundreds of films updated monthly, all free as part of a sky subscription) it makes the ATV at £100 seem overpriced for a fancy looking network media player.

Xbox is a dead end. Apple is constantly evolving iOS.

And hey, how's that Red Ring of Death thing working out for you?
 
Just updated my ATV to new software, and now for some reason the three new episodes of TV shows that I converted using HandBrake now display a black screen while the sound plays - while yesterday they played fine :(
 
Xbox is a dead end. Apple is constantly evolving iOS.

And hey, how's that Red Ring of Death thing working out for you?

Seriously? Agree that the ATV evolves but I seem to recall ESPN3 being added to the xbox last fall among other improvements. And unlike my ATV1, I could actually get those changes on my "clearance sale" Arcade.
 
Also agreed - I love the features of the PS3 (LoveFilm, iPlayer, 4OD), but much prefer the interface and AirPlay functionality on the Apple TV.
...if only they could.. *does the David Brent finger meshing gesture*

Oh, and if they could get the Apple remote to work like a Wiimote or PS3 Move (not as a pointer necessarily, but for gestures) that would be awesome.

I don't suppose it will happen, but in theory Sony could license AirPlay and add it to the PS3. Then you could use its native features for streaming off the internet and get all the Apple TV AirPlay goodness too.

James
 
This is amazing considering how many people claim no content providers will supply content for IOS devices because of Apple's fee structure.

Priceless, but lacking context. There's no App Store on Apple TV right now, so App store rules don't apply and getting these things on Apple TV are clearly in Apples best interest. It will be more telling once Apple adds an app store to Apple TV.

Yeah Apple is probably letting them on there for free... I am sure that is what it is.


Terrific news. I hope they eventually open the AppleTV up to apps.


It's a fun snipe, but it doesn't evaluate facts. The costs for this product have already been paid, so this content now holds an extremely large profit margin. They can give 30% up to Apple and still keep the lion's share. It is a perfect arrangement. It is completely irrelevant to conflicts which may exist in the agency model or other models in which profits are too tight to give up 30% of the product cost.


So you are saying this is GREAT for content producers and only bad for resellers / middlemen.. That is good because we don't care about them.. If the content providers can make huge money delivering content directly to Apple it is a big win.


I completely understand this business reason. However, they just don't get it.
For example, in my NHL market - even if the game is not sold-out, it's still shown on TV on DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, Verizon FIOS, and sometimes TSN or NBC. There is no 'exclusivity' here.

AppleTV should just be another outlet for the NHL, like all the above outlets. The NHL should take my money and pay the NHL team the same Time Warner is. But the business practice of 'bundling of services' seems to be the only reason this still exists. Someday, it'll change, it'll just take more time.


All those places are an outlet for a single tv channel. They don't all pay their own rights fee. They all carry the local channel which pays right fees to the local team to carry their game. If people are getting the games from elsewhere then the value to the television network is less, and they will want to pay less for the rights fees. At this point the leagues and teams are not confident enough that the significantly reduced right fees they would get offset what the networks/channels will pay for the games. All the contracts with the tv channels and networks give them exclusivity agreements for airing the broadcast in the local area.


Here in Dallas channel 21 and Fox Sports Southwest share the Mavericks broadcast. They, combined, have the rights to air all of the local mavericks games, except for those that are part of the game of the week contracts with TNT etc... If people in Dallas could just get the Mavericks on AppleTv, then they would not be watching it on channel 21, for example, so channel 21 would want to pay less money for the rights.

At some point it will tip to be worthwhile and you will have direct abilities, but with the fragmentation of the tv world over the past 20 years, sports are worth more than ever. While audiences for everything else have shrunk, sports audiences have stayed the same which has turned them into monsters for ratings, which means they get top dollars from tv networks and local channels.

The tv networks and local channels pay too much money right now, so they are not going to allow for any local competition.

As others have touched on, though, I believe you can watch any of the baseball games like 90 minutes after they air , regardless of blackout rules.. So that could be worthwhile to some people. Personally I don't watch any sports events live anyways, I dvr them so I can fast forward them and watch them much more quickly...
 
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NBA league pass

I watched a game on it last night OKC vs 76ers. It was pretty good, but I switched back to my DTV, and the picture quality was much better using the DTV..

Anyone have any clue, if apple will beable to upgrade the picture quality?? Or do you think this was caused by something other than the ATV2
 
$25.00 a month per subscriber isn't enough? Can't imagine the sports leagues/TV networks are getting that much from the cable companies for one channel.

Exactly...that would mean almost 1/4 of everyones cable bill...they're making MORE from the MLB subscription...

big baseball fan here, but that's what has kept me from the full MLB.TV subscriptions in the past...but im gonna bite the bullet and subscribe this year...gettin my first ipad(2) and looking forward to watching it (MLB) on the ipad.
 
Xbox is a dead end. Apple is constantly evolving iOS.

And hey, how's that Red Ring of Death thing working out for you?

fanboys are the worst. I'd encourage you to open your eyes and look at all the updates the xbox has received over it's lifetime, but it would be a waste of time.
 
Little slow today, what is this for?

It's the firmware package that allows you to update your Apple TV using iTunes. You'll need a micro-USB cable (not to be confused with _mini_-USB) to attach the ATV to your computer. You can then restore your ATV just like an iPod or iPhone.

Some people tweak the IPSW files before they restore. I've never done this, so I don't know much about that.
 
Facetime

Slightly off topic... I'm not a sports fan, but I am a fan of Netflix in 5.1.
The next obvious extension of ATV2 for me should be Facetime. Make a Facetime camera to attatch to your TV, plug it into ATV's mini USB port, and tada - Facetime calls from all your Mac, iPhone and iPad loving friends. ;)
 
Make a Facetime camera to attatch to your TV, plug it into ATV's mini USB port

You're missing the obvious. Facetime+Airplay = no wires. (That and the fact that the USB on the ATV2 is most likely not a host or "On the Go!" but just a client for updating firmware via iTunes).

B
 
This would be even better if the login ID and password actually worked.

For those having login issues from outside the States using an International League Pass Account.
---------------------------------------------------

Mail from the NBA LeaguePass Support:

Hello,

The application you are looking at on Apple TV is for the US League Pass which is a different product for the International League Pass. At this time NBA International League Pass does not have an Apple TV application. If you have any more questions please let us know.

Thank You

NBA League Pass
 
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