Greetings:

Have purchased the Extra Innings out of town baseball package through my local cable carrier for the past several years. It now appears as though MLB could care less about its fans (no surprise) and wishes to reduce the number of viewers watching its games as it is about to finalize a deal that would make DirecTV the exclusive distributor of the Extra Innings package. As a Yankee fan living in San Diego, I look forward to catching out of town games. While I have the option of changing from cable to satellite, I will not. Unlike the NFL--in which the out of town package was always offered only through DirecTV--baseball will be taking away something that has been available to cable subscribers--not a good business practice....the final option is to sign up for mlb.tv and watch the games on a 17" computer monitor--sorry, but I have a 50" high def plasma TV in my living room and do not wish to pay for 'downgraded' service.

Bottom line, for $700M MLB is selling out its fans.

I feel your pain royc as I used to be able to catch a Brave's game almost anywhere in the country. No more as games have moved off TBS (broadcast) to subscriber channels. welcome to the evolution of broadcast television.

But as you describe it, it makes me wonder if the root of the problem is that the cable outfits are not willing to pay the price that DirecTV is. Thus the cause of your misfortune to be a bad decision on the cable industry's part and not MLB.

The bottom line is that MLB is a business venture with a profit motive, not to provide a public service. This could help or hurt their overall profits. Fans will vote with their $, and only time will tell.

I will say this about DirecTV vs. cable. The standard picture on DirecTV is infinitely better than a standard picture on cable. I have a DLP and many visitors ask me if I am getting a HD signal and I am not. As for the high def, I think the quality should be about the same - as long as you have a signal. I have had DirecTV for about 10 years now. Customer service is as it should be - excellent -and those rare instances that the weather blocks the signal (this is almost eliminated with good satellite aiming), I only have to wait a few minutes on mother nature and not have to call and wait, call and wait for a cable repair man to make his rounds.
Hope you get it worked out so you can follow your team.

quote:

Originally posted by roycigar:
sorry, but I have a 50" high def plasma TV in my living room and do not wish to pay for 'downgraded' service.

I don't get it...you saying HD signal for cable is better? In any case, why would it matter to you? You have a plasma, not an LCD.

I am saying watching a game on a 17 inch computer monitor (another option if one were to subscribe to mlb.tv) is inferior to watching it on a 50 inch plasma televsion.

Disgusting isn't it. Last year, the World Champion Cardinals changed radio stations from a 50,000 Watt clearchannel station to a local 5,000 Watt station that you can't pickup some places in the city. They want you to have to pay a private source so they will get a cut. In addition the Cards just moved into a new stadium that I helped pay for. They reduced the capacity by several thousand and jacked up the prices. All the decent seats belong to season ticket holders, most of which are companies. As I recently read, baseball and football have increasing become a matter of rich people going to watch rich people play a game.

quote:

Originally posted by sobek:

quote:

Originally posted by roycigar:
sorry, but I have a 50" high def plasma TV in my living room and do not wish to pay for 'downgraded' service.

I don't get it...you saying HD signal for cable is better? In any case, why would it matter to you? You have a plasma, not an LCD.

I know it doesnt solve the problem of MLB switching service but does your computer have an S-Video out? When I had mlbtv a few seasons ago I just pluged the laptop into the tv.

You can buy a pretty cheap TV out card for your computer and feed your games over to your TV.

quote:

Originally posted by cwhite6:
You can buy a pretty cheap TV out card for your computer and feed your games over to your TV.

how's the picture?

I dont have an HDTV but I dont notice a loss in quality when I connect the computer to the TV. I would assume it would be dependant on the quality of chip you get.