MLB.TV in Linux

squash1978 · 07-02-2008, 07:42 PM

daftcat, you rock! Thanks for all your hard work on mlbviewer!

Quote:

Originally Posted by daftcat

Fixed in Revision 79. They changed the login message I was matching from "mlb.com" to MLB.com"

Code:

matthew@tango:~/mlbtv/svn/mlbviewer$ svn log
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r79 | daftcat75 | 2008-07-01 22:03:43 -0700 (Tue, 01 Jul 2008) | 2 lines

- Match both MLB.com and mlb.com so if they go wishy washy, we should handle it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r78 | daftcat75 | 2008-07-01 22:00:46 -0700 (Tue, 01 Jul 2008) | 4 lines

- The mlb.com folks changed the welcome message to MLB.com and broke the login.
This will work for now, but I'll improve the pattern matching in another
revision.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

squigoh · 07-02-2008, 08:32 PM

Thanks, Daftcat. You rock.

daftcat · 07-02-2008, 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Theophile

I'm having a problem that may or may not be related to mlbviewer. I cannot used the 800k stream reliably. Up until now, I was on a DSL connection and simply assumed the problem was due to lag. Now I'm on a 6mbps cable connection which has rated download speeds of 20,000kbps on the Speakeasy speed test and the problem persists.

If I play an 800k stream with mplayer and buffer of 2048kbps, it plays fine for a few moments then starts skipping and studdering. Increasing the buffer size works for a time, then it begins skipping again. One issue I have been noticing is that when I increase the buffer size, it appears to spawn multiple, identical instances of mplayer. Here is the video_player line I am using:

mplayer -vo xv -zoom -osdlevel 1 -nojoystick -noconsolecontrols -cookies -softvol -slave -user-agent NSPlayer -nomouseinput -cache 16384 -fs

I have tried using vlc and xine as players as well. In both cases, the buffers empty after a moment or two and constantly have to rebuffer.

This is ridiculous! Can anyone help me get to the bottom of this?

I increased my buffer to 8 MB (ridiculous!) and it still stutters sometimes, but it rides through it a lot easier. Before it used to get totally stuck. Now it kind of stammers itself back to normal...eventually.... Anyway, it's better than getting seven innings in and then having to restart the stream all over again.

Another thing to try is adjusting the buffer watermark levels. I think it defaults to 20% is how much buffer is necessary to start playback and seek up to 50% buffer before restarting:

Code:

# Use 8MB input cache by default.
#cache = 8192
#
# Prefill 20% of the cache before starting playback.
#cache-min = 20.0
#
# Prefill 50% of the cache before restarting playback after the cache emptied.
#cache-seek-min = 50

I wonder if there's a middle watermark like, "prefill 50% if cache empties to 10%. That would be more useful than letting it empty entirely. Although that would also likely cause more buffer refilling which might be more disruptive.

Wish I had a fix for this. Try upping your buffer to 8 mb.

Cheers!
M

daftcat · 07-02-2008, 09:54 PM

I'm always nervous that one night, they'll break it for good. But tonight was not that night.

daftcat · 07-02-2008, 10:30 PM

Heads up! I'm not entirely sure how mlbviewer is going to handle the Futures Game on July 13. I added the team codes but so far, the listings aren't being parsed that far into the future.

When we get closer, say the 11th, check back here. I may have a better idea of whether we'll support it. In the meantime, I'll get the updated TEAMCODES checked into svn in the next day or two.

Theophile · 07-03-2008, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daftcat

I increased my buffer to 8 MB (ridiculous!) and it still stutters sometimes, but it rides through it a lot easier. Before it used to get totally stuck. Now it kind of stammers itself back to normal...eventually.... Anyway, it's better than getting seven innings in and then having to restart the stream all over again.

Another thing to try is adjusting the buffer watermark levels. I think it defaults to 20% is how much buffer is necessary to start playback and seek up to 50% buffer before restarting:

Code:

# Use 8MB input cache by default.
#cache = 8192
#
# Prefill 20% of the cache before starting playback.
#cache-min = 20.0
#
# Prefill 50% of the cache before restarting playback after the cache emptied.
#cache-seek-min = 50

I wonder if there's a middle watermark like, "prefill 50% if cache empties to 10%. That would be more useful than letting it empty entirely. Although that would also likely cause more buffer refilling which might be more disruptive.

Wish I had a fix for this. Try upping your buffer to 8 mb.

Cheers!
M

I've actually tried it all the way up to 16MB. I'm not at the machine right now so I can't give the details, but the larger I set the buffer, the more separate instances of mplayer are spawned. It's preposterous!

Wolfvorkian · 07-03-2008, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daftcat

I'm always nervous that one night, they'll break it for good. But tonight was not that night.

When I couldn't log in via MlbViewer, I went to their website, gagged, and then logged in. As I said previously the ol' firebug trick works but surprisingly, so does the MedialPlayerConnectivity plugin... just like last year. Obviously they have made some changes. I don't subscribe to video because it isn't worth the frustration up here but the audio works fine using either of those techniques.

Another change is I was able to watch the archived tv games with only a radio subscription until the recent change but I can't now. (either on the website via MPC and mplayer or using MlbViewer)

As far as "break it for good", I assume you mean MlbViewer. What should be broke for good is those 2 friggin monopolies, Mlb and Microsoft. But with a brain-dead population and gutless politicians, that isn't going to happen.

daftcat · 07-03-2008, 03:33 PM

(svn users, skip this message)

Due to changes in the mlb.com web pages, you must use this current release for any content that requires an mlb.com account.

New to 0.1alpha7:

- 2007 season support
- Condensed Games
- National Blackout status
- INSTALL file

You can download this release at the project page on Sourceforge.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlbviewer

lephio · 07-03-2008, 03:35 PM

"there was an error in the player process"

sometimes i'm getting this error on condensed games. (mplayer can't start on CG but starts with all-game-long stream)

(usually twins games.. :eheh

daftcat · 07-03-2008, 03:40 PM

For svn users, you can simply do an update. 0.1alpha7 is Revision 80. Although Revision 81 is what you'll be updating to since I had to checkin the new version string of 0.1alpha7svn for svn revisions. Sourceforge releases do not contain the svn suffix in the version string.

New in Revision 80:

Removed a bias we had from the start for video content. Previously, if a game did not have video stream listings, we wouldn't even bother looking for audio streams. I've fixed that since All-Star week content will be audio only until after the game is finished and archived.

You guys should be able to listen to the All-Star and Futures games live if you don't feel like waiting for the archive.

I also changed some exception handling logic so you should be able to browse as many days into the future as mlb.com has jsp listings for. A new error message is introduced when you attempt to select a content type (audio or video) for which there is no stream information available in the listings. ("No stream available for selected game.")

I encourage everyone to update to the new release whether through sourceforge or svn. Post a quick thumbs up or down once you've updated and tested it. Thanks!

Cheers!
M

daftcat · 07-03-2008, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lephio

"there was an error in the player process"

sometimes i'm getting this error on condensed games. (mplayer can't start on CG but starts with all-game-long stream)

(usually twins games.. :eheh

Post your config (minus the user and pass) and tell me which day and game you are selecting.

I reviewed that code earlier this morning and it looks like the only thing that should flag that error is a problem with either the command you are using to watch a condensed game or a problem with the player itself.

It could also be a problem with the media server.

marvinsc · 07-03-2008, 06:10 PM

Hello,

I am not a expertise in linux, but a long time ago I've chosen linux as my operating system, and I was living well... until 2008, when the real evil empire called microsoft bought mlb folks with a lot of money and put that silverlight plugin attempting cut off all linuxers or obligate us to use their SO. I was really upset... and very sad about to no more watch the big leagues games...

SO. I want to thank very much the mlbviewer developers...to make me believe that is possible be a rebel against the microsoft evil empire !!!

Thank you very much... I am a simple linux user and I'll never be able to develop something like mlbviewer... it was very simple to download, install and use...

Here in Brazil, the mlb.tv is the only option to watch baseball...

Manny thanks

Marcus Vinícius

daftcat · 07-03-2008, 07:13 PM

Always good to hear the praise. I'm glad it's working for you!

Which team(s) do you follow?

lephio · 07-03-2008, 07:36 PM

PHP Code:


			
show_player_command=0

audio_player=xterm -e mplayer -cache 64 -quiet -playlist

top_plays_player=

time_offset=

audio_follow=

video_player=xterm -e mplayer -cache 2048 -quiet

debug=0

speed=800

x_display=

blackout=

Svn: 81
Game: DET@MIN 7/2/2008

A question for everybody:
Anyone knows a linux software to compile and print scorecards (and getting some basic stats..)? (my pencil-write-style is UUGLY!)

Marcus: Bem vindo! vocè mora em brasil, eu moro na italia.. e a gente gosta linux e baseball.. esso è MUITO LEGAL!!!

daftcat · 07-04-2008, 04:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lephio

PHP Code:


			
show_player_command=0

audio_player=xterm -e mplayer -cache 64 -quiet -playlist

top_plays_player=

time_offset=

audio_follow=

video_player=xterm -e mplayer -cache 2048 -quiet

debug=0

speed=800

x_display=

blackout=

Svn: 81
Game: DET@MIN 7/2/2008

A question for everybody:
Anyone knows a linux software to compile and print scorecards (and getting some basic stats..)? (my pencil-write-style is UUGLY!)

Marcus: Bem vindo! vocè mora em brasil, eu moro na italia.. e a gente gosta linux e baseball.. esso è MUITO LEGAL!!!

I'm not seeing a problem on my end.

Try changing your video line to:

Code:

video_player=mplayer -cache 2048 -quiet %s | tee /tmp/mplayer-cg.log

The %s will be replaced with the URL and tee will copy the output of mplayer to /tmp/mplayer-cg.log. For this, you'll have to remove the xterm part of the command or you'll end up teeing the xterm command to the log which won't provide me anything useful. Once you've made this change, the next time you have trouble with a CG, post the contents of mplayer-cg.log here so I can see what the player process is reporting.

You can change it back to the command you have once I have a log to look at. I don't see anything wrong with that command.