MLB.com made its 2010 MLB.TV subscriptions available on Wednesday, featuring state-of-the-art delivery of live, out-of-market Major League Baseball games as part of an unprecedented full season of access to the product over a variety of devices. That includes customers enabled to buy through applications on the iPhone, iPod Touch and the brand-new iPad.
Here is what you need to know about MLB.TV, which returns for its eighth season and continues to raise the bar for streaming live events and searchable video on demand.
What are some of the best features of MLB.TV for 2010?
Portability is front and center, as fans will enjoy convenient MLB.TV options optimized for numerous screens, from home and office computers to laptops and large monitors. Additional distribution to various Apple products, including the company's latest innovation, essentially means that MLB.TV has something for everybody, everywhere there's an Internet or mobile connection.
The full schedule of 2,430 regular season games is included, and most of those are delivered in HD quality (where available). MLB.com's proprietary speed detection allows high-speed users to receive crisp, best-in-class streaming video on any size monitor.
Fans also will get real-time highlights and stats; on-demand access to full-game archives so one can watch any pitch from the whole season; MLB.com Condensed Games featuring every payoff pitch; access to MLB.com Gameday Audio and a new, full-screen presentation of the popular pitch-by-pitch app; Clickable Linescores that let you go straight to any half-inning of a game; and a Fantasy Player Tracker consisting of ballplayers customized by subscribers and integrated with league rosters.
MLB.TV Premium subscribers get all that, and they also can enjoy the following features: Choice of home or away broadcast feeds, so favorite announcers are always a simple click away; DVR for pausing, rewinding and jumping back to live action; and a multi-game view (Quad Mode, Picture in Picture and Split Screen).
Now that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has just introduced the iPad, how will it help baseball fans?
Amid great fanfare, Jobs announced the "iPad" and unveiled a lightweight tablet that he said is "way better than a laptop, way better than a smartphone." MLB.com was represented on stage at the event, demonstrating how baseball fans can watch live baseball with that device.
Chad Evans, director of mobile product development for MLB Advanced Media, gave the demo for MLB.com before Jobs returned to the stage.
"We were incredibly excited to build something for the iPad, and we realized we couldn't just take our existing iPhone app and make it bigger," Evans said. "We really needed to create a whole new experience to take advantage of the big, gorgeous interactive screen on the device."
He went through several screen displays showing how the content will look, including users' ability to touch players for details, bells and whistles, and to access data pertinent to game situations.
"With all this great screen space, we can now let you watch video highlights while all this is going on so you can replay the game's best moments," said Evans, who spent the previous two weeks along with Tracy Pesin, director of mobile engineering at MLBAM, sequestered inside Apple's lab to build the demo that previewed what fans will see soon. "The first thing you notice is baseball is amazing on this screen, and now we've enhanced it."
When Jobs took the stage again following that demo, he told a worldwide crowd: "Isn't that awesome? These guys only had two weeks. So we've seen some really great apps."
How much does an MLB.TV subscription cost?
Yearly subscriptions are now available at $99.95 for MLB.TV and $119.95 for MLB.TV Premium. That will give you immediate access to relive every moment from every Major League game played in the 2009 season, including the Yankees' World Series clincher.
Will this work for Spring Training?
As part of the subscription, you will be able to watch or listen to more than 150 live games from Florida and Arizona as teams prepare for the 2010 regular season. The exhibition schedule starts with Braves-Mets on March 2 in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
What can we expect from MLB.com At Bat in 2010?
The MLB.com At Bat app was synched up with MLB.TV during the 2009 season so that fans could watch all live out-of-market games over their iPhone and iPod Touch devices. That changed everything. It was the overall No. 2-selling app in iTunes for 2009. Rave reviews included Best Multimedia App by Macworld and "2009 Most Valuable App" by Sports Illustrated, and CNET called it "another step in proving MLB.com's technical superiority."
Your favorite app will be back and enhanced for its second full season, available soon in the iTunes stores for use on devices including the iPhone and iPod Touch. Subscribe to MLB.TV, order the MLB.com At Bat app once it becomes available, and once again you will be able to watch live out-of-market games.
What will the media player itself look like?
The 2010 MLB.TV media player will deliver a fleet of enhancements in a convenient, cutting-edge Adobe Flash format, offering an unparalleled live viewing experience for every out-of-market regular season game.
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