Flipping through my parents Roku, I noticed that MLB.tv has been released for MLB.tv subscribers to watch games on their Roku.  Additional details here.

As an aside, Rokus make great, cheap gifts for folks with Netflix (and now MLB.tv).  I highly recommend them and they are super simple to set up and use, connect to the TV via HDMI, HD component video or regular component video.  So they can stream HD content.

Still no word on MLB.tv for Tivo, though this a clear and significant step in the right direction.  Well done to MLB.tv for making this happen.

Sitting at games this year with Krazy Khris, we got to talk about a web site that would show you exactly where to sit to have the best chance of catching a foul ball.  Out of those talks came the first version of this site:

FoulBallTracker.com

Here is an example of the types of maps this will produce.  This one, for obvious reasons, is Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

Citizens Bank Park Foul Balls

Obviously there are a lot of extensions that would beneficial to this — left handed vs. right handed hitters, and making sure duplicates aren’t entered.  I am sure I will get to those in my incredible amounts of free time.  We are relying on users to enter the data and there is a link to do that as well.

Happy foul ball hunting.

With the start of the baseball season, we have seen a true traffic spike - welcome latecomers.

The HTPC described below came together beautifully. I watched my first Phillies game on it the other night.

While I maintain that Tivo and MLB.tv should team up to provide this service, building an HTPC is a reasonably cheap alternative.

Using it as a blu-ray player also seems to work well and looks great. In “The Dark Knight” there is only one scene where the video card can’t keep up — when the building explodes in a huge fireball.

The theme of this site is very quickly becoming how to watch MLB.tv on an HDTV. If you are just joining us, catch up here and here.

With PopcornFarmer in town, work on the HTPC has begun. I finally settled on all the hardware — here is my Newegg wishlist.

I am happy to report that after a little scare because the case was shorting out the MoBo, the machine powered right up. Step 2 is the OS and software.

The economy is headed south, and everyone is thinking about what they will do if the worst happens to their job. Here is what I will do:

Jamie Moyer is an inspiration. He is 47 or so years old and he is a pretty ok pitcher. That is what I want to be. Great command; great pitches. A fastball in the low 80s and he still throws a mean changeup!

As you can see from this page from my Irish baseball days, I have a long way to go to match his command. But I am working on it.

Regular readers of this blog will remember this post wisely suggesting MLB.tv and Tivo team up to provide MLB.tv’s new HD content through Tivo so we can watch on our TVs. The update to that post suggested I was considering an AppleTV or MacMini to fill this void. My thinking has changed. Apple stuff is just unreasonably expensive.

PopcornFarmer will be in town for a couple days in March and I am thinking this is the time to build my own HTPC (home theater PC). This would allow me to watch MLB.TV in HD on my TV.

While I am at it, I want to fill a shortcoming in my system which is a Blu-ray player. So I need a system that can achieve smooth 1080p playback for Blu-ray discs, but I dont need much besides that. I dont need TV tuner cards; or massive hard disk space.

I am settling on this motherboard with a built in ATI Radeon HD 3200 video card and HDMI out. With 2GB of RAM, a dual-core 2.7Gh processor, and this 6x blu-ray player from LG, I think I am there. I think I can do the basic hardware for $400, then a little bit more for a wireless keyboard and mouse, an OS (might be the only thing Vista is good for). And if I ever want to really upgrade it, I could.

Getting close to baseball season…

(Update, 2/17: Over 50% of this site’s search traffic is related to MLB.tv and Tivo. And visits are up 1,750% from last month. Heads up MLB Advanced Media, can you spell v-i-r-a-l?)

For the 11 people who have googled me hoping to find out interesting things about me, i am sorry. This blog is purposefully boring.

Recently I have become a big fan of avocados. Wikipedia claims avocados are put in hotdogs and hamburgers in Chile. That is incredible.

I tried to find historical avocado prices, but failed. Instead, only this dire warning about prices this spring and summer.

This USDA site appears to be a good resource as well, though one slide in their 2005 presentation claims Alaska is an avocado producer. That doesn’t sound right…

I thought this sign, under the heading “Rebuilding DC,” was ironic:

Dear Tivo and MLB.tv,

First, I am a big fan of both of your products. Tivo, too often you try to guess at college sports i might like, but in general you do a pretty good job recording just the right amount of sports and classics like “How It’s Made” and “Captured Abroad.” MLB.tv, you have provided me with endless hours of Phillies baseball when I am not in Philly, and your soporific content has helped me get plenty of sleep on weeknights when the Phillies aren’t playing and I am watching some other team.

Now is the time to join forces and provide MLB.tv through Tivo. With this news today, and certainly more like it to follow, you need to be aggressive in expanding your online options. And assuming it is within MLB.tv’s license agreement, it should involve building one little interface for Tivo.

Imagine the business you could get: baseball fans switching from satellite and cable packages to MLB.tv and Tivo; mostly sports watchers that don’t feel the need for Tivo would line up as well. (Give me free service and I will do the microtargeting for you (just kidding, I couldn’t spare the time, I’d be busy watching baseball)).

I am lucky and have a fallback. I somehow managed to buy a new computer that has only VGA video output. But I also have a slightly broken old computer that has s-video out and can now be used as a dedicated MLB.tv link. But there are many out there less fortunate than I.

Help us.

Thank you,

Mike

Update (2/10/09): This New York Times article outlining MLB.TV’s new enhanced video for this season has brought new and renewed urgency to this situation.  The solution above will not get me near the 720p that they claim you will be able to get if you can maintain connection speeds of 3mbps.  Thus, I need to figure out a faster internet connection, and a digital video out signal before the baseball season starts.  Thinking mac mini or Apple TV — but I wish there was a cheaper solution.  Tivo, help me out here.