Just registered here so I could say thanks for an excellent tool - it's a shining example of how to really build an efficient application. Much better than the MLB site.

I'm not a Python programmer but if you need help with documentation / web design / site hosting just shout. I'd love to give back.

@cschanck

I would love to see the command-line version. I periodically want to listen on all sorts of crazy devices, so an ultra-lite option would be great.

@daftcat

I don't use CG or any of those other extras very much, but I think the third option is definitely the best. Much simpler and easier to understand than the others, and it sounds like it's fairly flexible too.

Something that's always annoyed me about curses is that some programs use it for a gui but still have ultra-cryptic interfaces (slashes or hyphens in obscure places that completely change program behavior, impossible-to-learn hotkeys, etc). I think the third option (and mlbviewer in general) hits the balance just right between simplicity and usability -- leave the cryptic stuff for the command-line tool!

Incidentally, jhmiller42, you mentioned a few pages ago that you were able to tweak your VLC config in Windows to allow seeking. You posted a link with good instructions for installing Firefox's MediaPlayerConnectivity add-on, but I didn't see anything about the VLC config -- can you remember what steps you went through to enable seeking, and does it seek smoothly even after the stream has been open for a while?

mlbviewer alpha6 bug report:

something wrong with cg availability. on mlb media center cg of MIN@CLE is available. but on mlbviewer it doesn't.

(if you have a bugzilla platform, i can use it if you want)

Which date? How long did you wait? Is it available now?

We get our CG availability from a jsp media listings page. That page does not get updated as often as I would like but that's the one we rely on. If that jsp isn't updated with CG availability, then we can't add it to mlbviewer until it does update.

Yesterday's page is:

http://mlb.mlb.com/components/game/y...amesbydate.jsp

Just change month and day in the URL to get whatever day's listing you are looking for.

I don't know about bugzilla. I subscribe to this thread so if you post here, I'll see it. Bug fixes are usually a quick turn-around in svn.

I'll likely have a new release (maybe even call it a beta?) by the end of the month. There's a big backend change planned to feed the gui raw data rather than pre-cooked strings and I'd like to have everyone using that version when it's ready.

In the longer term, I'll see if I can figure out where media center gets its listings (since they seem to be ahead of the jsp) and we might swap out the jsp code for xml pages. Don't expect that anytime soon though.

Also, when reporting bugs, please use the svn revision rather than the release version. alpha6 tells me very little because I can't even tell you what svn revision we officially called alpha6. But if you tell me it was svn revision 75, I could tell whether you are using current code and whether an issue you reported is new or fixed in a more recent svn revision.

To find out what svn revision you are using:

Thanks!
Matthew

ok, nice! i pulled revision 75 with svn, and yesterday's CG now are just there!

to me.. next release could be a beta.

if you need some betatesting (or alphatestig.. ;D) i'm here!

I finally got a moment to sit down and push around some code.

The new CG No Spoilers (CG-NS for short) feature is checked into svn. Update your svn revision with the 'svn up' command. You will need svn revision 76 or later for CG-NS.

Some notes about the CG-NS implementation in mlbviewer:

- When mlbviewer reads the jsp listings page, if a condensed game video is available, the Status line will read "Status: Final (Condensed Game Available)". If condensed game is not available, it will simply say, "Status: Final".

- To watch a condensed game, use the 'c' hotkey.

- Speed setting doesn't matter. It will always be 400K as that is the only speed CG's come in.

- Debug rules apply. If enabled, the URL only is displayed or if errors occur, they will crash on through to the shell prompt like a lead ball. This is useful for reporting bugs. Please post the entire traceback when reporting a bug.

- Condensed games are no longer supported from the Top Plays screen. Too much repetitive code would be needed for that.

- Condensed games rely on the status being 'CG' (or "Status: Final (Condensed Game Available)" if you don't know or care about the internal status codes we use.) If the game is not in 'CG' state, you will not be allowed to watch the CG even if Media Center says one is available. The jsp file must be updated by mlb.com for mlbviewer to know about Condensed Games.

- You may have to refresh the listings page if you think a game should be in 'CG' state and it's not. Use 'r' to refresh the listings. Again, the jsp lags behind the website so there's little we can do if the website says a CG is available but the jsp has not been updated.

Please update to revision 76 and let me know how CG-NS is working (or not working) for you.

Thanks,
Matthew

upd to 76.. great job!

if something goes wrong i'll post here any debug. everyday i watch twins cg's!

My bad. Should've added the final detail -- in the MPC config screen (shown in No. 9 of that tutorial) add --codec dmo before the %f. That's all I did, and it worked like a charm.

Incidentally, has there been any movement on seeking in Linux? I've gotten the impression it's an extremely tricky, and possibly insoluble, problem.

Once I've given you the url, it's out of my hands. It's up to whatever media client you use to support it (or not.)

But the url's also expire after a very short period. Short of being able to ask for a new cookie (which I wouldn't know how to link that with the media player's seek function), it's not going to happen.

I suppose no news is good news on the CG-NS update?

Oops yes - it works perfectly.

Thank you.

something wrong with a stream a couple of days ago.. but now it's ok!

The media servers can be moody sometimes but there's nothing mlbviewer can do for that. Think of mlbviewer as a middle man. It hooks you up with the server that can provide your game. But if that server is acting funny, it's out of my hands.