Okay, looking at that crash location, it would require more code than it is worth for Spring Training. Now if I had created GUI libraries like I wanted to, I could just throw up an error window and go back to listings. This is yet another case for me to clean up the code and write a routine for displaying errors in curses.

I'm listening to a game on my iPhone in background mode. Yes, I realize I'm also sitting in front of a perfectly capable computer, but this is so much geekier!

(Bonus points for not having to explain the personal use bandwidth consumption to IT department at work.)

I am new to mlbviewer for 2010, can someone point me towards a "getting started" resource, so I don't have to sift through 156 pages ?

Or am I best off waiting a month to see what happens? (I can watch on my Windows computer for the time being, though that is not my preference.)

Hello gents,

I think I am missing something. Selecting a known-working game (works in the web browser) drops me to this error:
... then back to the game listing. Same is true for known-working archived games. What have I done?

Meh, teach me to post an error. Just needed to turn off NexDef and all is gravy. I'm leaving this up in case others Google it.

Depends on your experience level with Linux. mlbviewer is not really ready for 2010 because MLB.TV is not really ready for 2010 yet. That said, if a little hard work and reading doesn't scare you, download mlbviewer from Sourceforge and read the README and REQUIREMENTS files included in the package. The sourceforge mlbviewer will not work for 2010 (even Spring Training) so you'll have to update to the latest SVN revision of mlbviewer (pre-release code.) The README should have instructions on how to do this. Nexdef is not ready for 2010 yet so you'll have to locate a copy of rtmpdump 1.5. I've heard this can be found on torrents networks. I'll be working on an flvstreamer patch but that probably won't be available until next week.

After all this, though, there's no guarantee that mlbviewer will work with 2010 season. What we're seeing right now in Spring Training, how they've operated the last few seasons, is they are putting out games over last year's service architecture while the developers continue to work on this year's service. Likely, based on past seasons' experience, they'll roll out the new service in a limited capacity (one or two games a day) over the final week or two of Spring Training as they get ready to go live with the new service on Opening Day. So until this beta period begins, there's no telling whether mlbviewer will even work with the 2010 service.

For now, though, the patch I made in svn a couple of days ago should work with Spring Training games.

I recommend subscribing to this thread to stay on top of any changes I make in the mlbviewer code (e.g. knowing whether and when to grab a new SVN revision.)

For the record, rtmpdump 1.6 works just fine. I didn't use the Patch.sh script in the directory, but I got it working by copying the patch to the rtmpdump directory and doing: Then you have to make these changes. Then:
Baseball!

rtmpdump 1.6 can be acquired without bittorrent here: http://launchpad.net/rtmpdump/trunk/...mp-v1.6.tar.gz

Good to know about rtmpdump 1.6. I'll rewrite the patch this weekend for v1.6.

I tested the 1200K stream and the request looks right but I'm not sure they are archiving 1200K for all games yet. 800K seems to be the common denominator so I'll just stick to that until I get a clearer picture of what they're planning for the regular season.

i know you will all roll your eyes, but while watching live games with mlbviewer and mplayer, a new issue has come up, namely the video in mplayer freezing after about two minutes. the audio continues without a problem.

i didn't encounter this problem yet when i tried to watch archived games from the last couple of days. it could be just mplayer hiccuping after the stream stops/shuffles from mlb.tv for a few seconds. but if anyone has an idea, i would appreciate it.

it is not my internet connection.

i have this line in my config file and use a svn revision of mplayer.

anyone else encountering problems like this? it could be just spring training.

thanks,
markus

One thing you might try is removing "-really-quiet" from the line. That is mainly for silencing the errors from the wonky h264 with NexDef streams and if you turn it off, it might give you a useful error message. Another suggestion is to use mplayer's -dumpstream option to save the file locally, then play it back with another instance of mplayer simultaneously. At the very least, this will give you a test file to use to track down the problem.

For giggles last night, I downloaded the latest flvstreamer and was pleasantly surprised to see that they have included my subscribe patch for live games. Apparently, as of flvstreamer/rtmpdump 1.7, subscribe has been supported. The version I tested with was 2.1c1 (the latest) and it is an easy drop in replacement to rtmpdump that is actively developed and supported without any need for my patch (as near as I can tell so far.)

You have three options if you want to try flvstreamer.

1. In MLBviewer/mlbtv.py, change the rtmpdump to flvstreamer in the DEFAULT_F_RECORD statement at the top.
2. Install flvstreamer as rtmpdump (cp flvstreamer /usr/bin/rtmpdump)
3. Wait for a patch where I'll add that as a config file option. Probably this weekend.

Markus, if you turn on show_player_command (e.g. show_player_command=True) in the config file and leave --really-quiet, you'll see a byte count of the stream being downloaded by rtmpdump. That should always be increasing. If it freezes, then it's rtmpdump that's the problem and not mplayer. In that case, you can try flvstreamer choosing either option 1 or 2 above.

thanks for your replies, theophile and daftcat,

unfortunately leaving out -really-quiet didn't cut it, so i installed flvstreamer. the installation seems to have gone through successfully and i did what you, daftcat, told me to do:

my config file now has:

when i play a game, the terminal gives me this output, but:

a) the cache fill doesn't go up
b) mplayer doesn't start

in the background though, mplayer starts. i just don't see or hear anything...

i know you all might start getting frustrated... but right now it seems issues in my house, and not mlb.tv's...

thanks so much everybody!
markus

I saw that problem with flvstreamer on one of my systems (the older one) but not the other (where the cache wasn't filling.) Try going back to rtmpdump but use show_player_command=True and --really-quiet.

By the way, what's your system specs?

I use the following command on my older system (750Mhz/256 RAM):

I've also used -autosync 30 before. I don't remember why it's not in this one. I have five or six lines I take turns commenting/uncommenting to try to remove hiccups.

You can also try the following:

This will create a file of the form <calendar-event-id>.mp4 (something like 14-277017-2010-03-05.mp4.) You can then use another mplayer command to play that file as it is being written.

Sweet! I guess I was smarter than I thought because I use the game id plus the broadcaster call letters for the file name. So today's yankees game is actually written as 2010-03-05-tbamlb-nyamlb-1-YES.mp4.

Weird. My older system is now playing the yankees game with flvstreamer without any streaming issues. Of course, only cat knows for sure what the output looks/sounds like because I'm doing this remotely from work. I'll switch to the dumpstream command and check the output file later tonight.