(Credit:
Roku)
In its bid to put together a roster of compelling content, Roku has just acquired an ace.
Starting Tuesday, the set-top box--known to many as "the Netflix box"--will begin streaming Major League Baseball games. As with the current Netflix arrangement, you have to be a subscriber to the service, in this case MLB.com Premium, to access the content that normally would be available only on a PC or iPhone.
And while this is a boon to baseball fans, it's an even more important development for Roku. MLB.tv Premium is the first live content available on Roku's device, and by bringing that from the PC to the TV, the 50-person Saratoga, Calif., company is beginning to differentiate itself from similar consumer electronics products.
Roku currently has access to the Netflix Watch Instantly queue, as well as Amazon Video on Demand, which allows for rental and purchase of movies. More recently, Roku added content from Blip.TV and MediaFly, two content aggregators, for videos and podcasts.
MLB.tv will work the same way. It will be accessed via a new pane that can be reached via the small remote. Once a customer's account is synced, any live, out-of-market (as in, not your home team) game across the league can be seen, with the choice of both the home and away team's local broadcast feed. Games up to one week old are available in the archive, and previews appear of each team's scheduled games up to a week in advance. ... Read more
Of all the sports leagues, Major League Baseball has the reputation of being the most technologically savvy. On Thursday, MLB proved it by winning its first tech patent.
Bob Bowman says baseball couldn't stream games without subscriber-locating system.
(Credit: Major League Baseball Advanced Media)The league's digital unit, Major League Baseball Advanced Media(MLBAM), announced on Thursday that it was granted patent No. 7,486,943 for a system that helps determine a subscriber's geographical location. MLBAM oversees MLB.tv, the online video distribution service that streams live and on-demand games, and is widely considered to be the most successful subscription business on the Internet.
Pinpointing where a subscriber is located when he or she logs on to watch a game is necessary to avoid violating "blackout rules." TV stations all over the nation purchase exclusive broadcast rights from the clubs that cover highly specific geographical areas. MLBAM's system enables the service to locate where subscribers are logging on and block them from receiving streaming video of a game if they are located in a region where a TV broadcaster has the exclusive rights to show the game.
Sure, the blackout rules frustrate plenty of sports fans, but without baseball's subscriber-locating system, MLBAM would be prevented from streaming games over the Web, said the company's CEO, Bob Bowman.
Baseball finds MLB.tv users via a system that combines several different pieces of tracking software. Quova, based in Mountain View, Calif., contributes with software that helps determine a person's network address. The software makes a series of best guesses and assigns a confidence factor to the estimate. MLBAM will then use other sources, such as payment data, to close in on a person's local.
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