[mrtropicguy]

it's almost time for baseball season to start again.  i have enjoyed watching games on my laptop connected to the tv.  but i since i already have the xbox connected to the tv, it would be nice to be able to watch the games via xbmc.

xbmc can play the streams (audio and video) fine.  i have extracted the url for the stream using mplayer-plugin in linux.  i save this url off in a strm file and xbmc can open the stream as long as the url hasn't expired.  i'm not sure how long the url is valid, it lasts at least 30 seconds or so.

this method works fine, but it would be nice to have a script that would download a list of active games and let you pick which game to play.

there is currently a java application called modern transistor radio (mtr) that lets you watch and listen to games using a pocketpc.  this might be a good place to start looking at code for a python script that would serve this purpose.  

does anyone else think this might be useful?  since i am not much of a coder i don't think i would be much help writing the application.  it is just an idea i thought i would throw out.

[thriftynomad]

i've been playing around with this... but it requires me learning python as i go along.

on xbmcscripts.com, i found the nrk browser script seems to be a good base for logging into a site, finding links and executing the streams... but i'm in a little over my head!!

[mrtropicguy]

maybe it's time for me to pickup python.

i'll check out the nrk brower script and see if i can make sense out of it.

looking at the mlb site it looks like the you have to run some javascript to get the link for the game. looks like that might be a problem.

[thriftynomad]

i think i can handle the python part, and with the clientcookie addon, i'm pretty sure i can get everything from the site and send back the appropriate info to get the stream "authenticated" for the ip.

to my eyes (which are often wrong), it looks like all of the variables necessary for the stream (reflector, etc), are available on the main page before you even log into the pop-up window.

so, i think it's a matter of making 3 steps:

1) make the python script parse the page http://mlb.mlb.com/nasapp/mlb/mlb/video/mlb_tv.jsp and pull out all of the "l 350" urls...

note that those are javascript links, but that javascript is just launching the window and passing variables to a server-side script... so it would be a matter of figuring out which variables need to be sent and in what format.

2) providing the username and password authentication...

(this is not done per stream because you can change games without re-entering your login). for this, the script would need to be able to fire off the variables, much in the same way that the nrk script does. it's also a windowed media browser that requires a username and password... so i'm hoping we could learn from that.

3) launching the returned mms url...
this should be the easy part, but i can't quite figure out how to parse a returned page or output from the server... there must be an html trace utility that would give me the code that launches the windows media section of the browser?

anyhoo... i'm playing with it, but am probably in over my head. the reason i was posting all of that is in case some clever developer feels like lending a hand?

i'd be willing to provide my login to mlb.tv to someone for a few days?

thanks all for looking at this...

[thriftynomad]

oh yeah, 2 more things...

i e-mailed the mtr guy to see if he'd be willing to provide some of the code we need, or give us a copy of the app...

and, i've been noticing that the mlb.tv streaming on the xbox has been really hit and miss lately (no pun intended!!... seems to stutter often and have problems refreshing images... i think it's related to the xbox trying to re-sync the audio and video for the stream. i've been using a pc on the same connection (not at the same time) and the streams have been flawless. i started noticing the streaming issues with the 03-17 and 03-23 builds... anyone else having streaming trouble?

thanks all...

[matcapir]

i am a subscriber to mlb.com and was wondering if this can be streamed somehow to my xbox? any help would be appreciated, searched and found nothing on it.

[Hullebulle]

searched and found nothing?  

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;hl=mlb
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;hl=mlb

(and there are more)

[matcapir]

thanks dude, for the links and not flaming me. i guess i should read the tutorial on how to search since i obviously haven't learned how to do it properly yet, thanks again.

[matcapir]

deleted

[twelvepbrs]

searched and found nothing? *

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;hl=mlb
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;hl=mlb

(and there are more)

looks like i'm a couple years too late, the links above are dead, anyone know if these posts are in an archive somewhere (i too have seached and found nothing ), also did anyone actually come up with a usefull script so that XBMC can handle mlb.tv from login to video stream launch/changing games, etc...
(i've got the open on your PC and paste URL into .strm file working fine, but it's still kind of a pain in the ar$e)

[akaigotchi]

As for an easy solution without having to script anything: You can find "The Baseball Channel", which features MLB extensively (live games, radio shows, interviews...) inside XBMC-TV. You can find XBMC-TV here: http://www.xbmc-tv.com . Simply navigate to the "Downloads" section and download the latest snapshot pack. FTP this to your XBOX (preferryably E:\XBMC-TV\ ) and start XBMC. Then navigate to the "My videos" section and press the white controller button to include a bookmark in the "My videos" section. Point the bookmark to your folder where you just uploaded XBMC-TV and give it a name tag (preferrably XBMC-TV ). Then you should be all set to watch MLB on your beloved XBOX.

Another option would be to download the MC360 Video Marketplace Mod from http://www.xbmc-tv.com . Just follow the installation instructions included there and have some fun with it

BTW, an update of the snapshot pack with over 80 channels added is due to be released today.


Cheers
akaigotchi
C