My mother-in-law (aka "the Queen") was gracious enough to buy me MLB.TV for another season. (An early birthday present.) While I'm grateful, I'm also frustrated as hell MLB.TV service. I must admit, I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it. Here's my story...
It started during spring training. I made a mistake on the order page which I could not undo. When I tried to start over, it added a 2nd, then a 3rd and a 4th order. Even clearing my history file didn't help because it was tied to my login. I eventually was able to clear it, but when I finally ordered the damn thing I inadvertently ordered the low-end 400K streaming version. I searched for days and could not find an upgrade option. I was stuck with low-end video.
Sadly, this issue never really became a problem. During spring training, they only showed a handful of games and I never got to watch a Phillies game. Then, during the first week, they played the Nationals and the Reds. Now, I live along the North/South Carolina border. I'm hours from Washington and Cincinnati. My TV (Local, Cable & Satellite) has never carried a Reds or Nationals game that I'm aware of. Still, I'm in their blackout zones.
I posted 2 service emails: 1 asking about the blackout (which was really just a way to vent) and another asking for help in getting the better video package. Since my service emails went unanswered, I attempted to call MLB.TV. After waiting on hold for 20 minutes, I gave up. I tried again a few days later and gave up after another 20 minutes. I loath bad customer service. I've walked away from stores never to return for less than this. *SIGH* BUT, I "need" baseball. I resigned myself to waiting for the Mets series and settling for 400k. Finally, the Mets series started and what did I do? I missed the first game completely. You know...the really good game!
Today, I logged on promptly at 7:05! I was ready. There's good news and bad news. The good news was a little box offering me the option of upgrading my subscription to 1.2M streaming. The bad news? I got multiple errors loading the 1.2M streaming software. Thankfully, the 800k stream worked and I got to watch the Phillies...as they got their butts handed to them!
So tonight, after the game, I went about trying to figure out how to make the streaming work. I won't go into extensive and painful details. Let me sum it up with this. 1.2M streaming requires a buffer plug-in. What does this mean? It means that there's an icon on my taskbar with no control panel, no folder in the start menu and no uninstaller in the add remove programs area. Do you have any idea how much I detest that sort of thing? I treat unwanted taskbar icons without manual control as viruses. Oh yeah, did I mention how it didn't work properly? After reading several user forums, I figured out that I could go into the Windows Internet Control Panel, change the Trusted Sites requirements and add an unsecured mlb.com address to the list. I finally got to watch the last inning of the San Diego game in 1.2M streaming. At least it worked in Firefox. I hate having to use IE7 for anything. I detest the icon. I don't like anything taking up memory or bandwidth. I loath the idea that I'll have to find a way to manually uninstall the program after baseball season. (Imagine what the long version of this story would have looked like!)
That said, here's my silver lining...
It works now! I have 1.2M streaming baseball. I also figured out how to import the *.csv file of the Phillies schedule (Download from mlb.com,) edit it and import it into Google Calendar. So, once I chill out about the fact that I hate MLB.TV's service and software, I can rest easy knowing that my Calendar will alert me about the games and I'll be able to watch them (unless they play the Nationals, the Reds or the Braves. I can only listen to those games.)
Sadly, if pressed I'd have to recommend MLB.TV, but only in situations where a person could not afford to watch the games on real TV. Knowing what I know now, I can't say I would have wanted to shell out for this service on my own. I keep reminding myself that it's a long season and the service is still relatively new. Here's hoping that I've gotten all the BS out of the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment