“When a technology enthusiast can have a new product in his hands, he suddenly becomes the happiest child in the world and, if the product is valid, after a short time he will naturally wonder what his life was like without that product”.
The moment I read these lines I thought that I was in the presence of a person moved by my own passionswith which we travel on the same wavelength, which led me to ask him if he was willing to write an article for the fourth date with one of Announcements of this third season of Ultra Slow Mo, the one that provides the involvement daily followers of the Sports in Media community on Twitter.
So this week he came to see me Cristian Bona (their twitter @Sberl1983), which in everyday life combines being a medico nephrologist to the much more difficult activity of padre of three little pests!
Among many passionsCristian has always cultivated a particular one, the one for the United States of America and in particular for the american sportswhich he has always and only seen (strictly) from the privileged position of his sofa at home (actually, as we shall see, also from other rooms!).
And today, Cristian, is here to tell the readers of Ultra Slow Mo the evolution of the first platform streaming born to broadcast live an American professional sport: MLB.TV.
“I distinctly remember, Wenner, the day the first ADSL modem arrived at my house: October 2002, at the beginning of my first year of university. And that winter, thanks to the world of the Internet finally entering my room, my hunger for American sports was finally satiated.
Thanks to the web, it immediately became easy to find news, read events, follow live text for matches and even get to live NHL commentary in the cold Italian winter nights”.
Having always been fascinated by the baseballthe following spring (i.e. that of 2003) was the moment in which together with a friend (infra we will understand why: ed) Cristian finally had the opportunity to follow the MLB the same way the NHL followed:
“As a penniless student that I was, I couldn’t afford much, while my amico had the opportunity to sign thesubscription to MLB.TVwith the promise to share it with me. A dream. the day ofopening day of MLB, I readied myself to hear the commentary of Milwaukee Brewers @ St. Louis Cardinals when I got a message on MSN messenger: click on the tv icon, not on the headset. I click and for the first time in my life I enter the world of streaming: MLB.TV with all live American baseball games. It is April 2003 and I have the opportunity to watch all American baseball games live from my home via the Internet. Total science fiction”.
“MLB.TV”, Cristian explains to me, “could only come from the United States of America, where cable TV and pay-per-view modes had already been in vogue for at least a decade, where the world wide web was already going crazy (WWE, historic US wrestling company, opened its sites already in the second half of the 90s) and where they were searched new ways to increase revenue. Il August 26, 2002 first baseball game aired via streaming: Texas Rangers @ New York Yankees”.
On the twentieth anniversary, MLB itself published a screenshot, visible via twitter, where on a technological level we can “appreciate” some things:
1) The “quality” of the stream, at 280kbps;
2) The use of the Real Player.
That match was watched by approx 30 thousand people and represented thestart of a journey which even today we do not know how it will end, but which has seen a series of evolutions under various aspects, to which Cristian had the opportunity to witness firsthand.
And who, then, better than a passionate how can he tell them to Ultra Slow Mo readers?
“The first look”, Cristian reminds me, “which is almost a must to mention in introducing a streaming service, is his quality. With the eyes of an ‘enthusiast’ and knowing the enormous difficulties of accessing the vision of US sport (in addition to free-to-air broadcasting, it is right to mention the activity of the Pontelwhich supplied all fans with VHS of the matches), streaming a 280 kbps it was in any case enjoyable; using the head is obviously a very low quality, which on the monitors of the time (almost all in cathode ray tube here, some lucky ones were already starting to own flat screen ones) were decently appreciated in a window, often placed centrally on the desktop. The full screen looked discreetly from a distance, but it was still difficult to follow the trajectories of the ball, especially when in flight after being hit at supersonic speeds”.
“Ma”, continues Cristian, “the technology travels fast and already after a few years the service passes from Real Player to Windows media, bringing the quality at 640kbps until you get toHD already a few years after the introduction of the service. With a view to greater accessibility, the evolution has not gone beyond HD: MLB has worked hard to find an ideal balance between quality and accessibility, the fundamental factor in being able to disseminate the service as much as possible”.
“In addition to the increase in video quality”, Cristian explains to me, “We have come to break away from the historic Windows Media Player to develop a proprietary player: a difficult transition, which has created some problems over the years (initially HD was only available by installing additional software, the loved/hated next-def) but which has allowed mlb to break through and land substantially everywhere: consoles, smart TVs, mobile phones, tablets; all the time by degrees. I distinctly remember the turn of the 10s some solo night car journeys with the speakerphone on the hook radio commentary of the St. Louis Cardinals to keep me company, something that only a few years before was pure fantasia”.
And when a fan like Cristian tells these things, he does it today too, in 2022, putting in that same passion which prompted him a few years ago to listen to the radio commentary of the St. Louis Cardinals, his favorite team, in the car.
“Short digression aside, Wenner, the video quality remains settled on HD with minimum connection requirements ranging between 1800/3000 kbps to be able to see in what is considered the standard definition (720p, our HD Ready to be clear), between 3000 and 5000 kbps for a 1080p definition up to 1080p with 60 frames per second for those with a higher connection (and the difference with 60 frames per second is noticeable)”.
I learn from Cristian that among the various features introduced by MLB.TV over time, one of those present from the beginning (and among the most popular) is the dual feed (i.e. double audio signal).
“When you connect to the service, from any device you do, you will have the choice whether to do it by watching the game on the home team’s TV or that of the away team. Each fan therefore has the right to watch every game with the feed of his favorite team (except for matches broadcast on national TV, however few) and this immediately leads us to think that they are there for every evening 30 different feeds to choose from, with 60 different commentators (usually 2 for each team, even if the trend lately is to also have the third you’re 30 ‘field side’. Each team has its own reference local TV and a sort of loyalty is created, with some national boom in the case of particularly good or particularly recognizable commentators. Quote Vin Scullythe legendary Dodgers commentator, is a must, but over the years various figures have been created who then go on to divide fans: an example is certainly Michael Kay, the commentator of the Yankees who have their own TV (YES network), recently come to the fore here too for football interests; another example is represented by the commentator of the White Sox, always very ‘colorful’ and ‘divisive’, especially in recent years. But be careful, Wenner, it should not be understood as colorful and divisive as we understand it in our latitudes because the American standard in commentary is different, less fan even in biased feeds and more tending to tell you about the team in its many facets, especially those emotional (a component that always works in America)”.
And this, I think to myself, is just what happens with the television audio signal: who knows how the variegated world of american radios commenting on many sporting events, including MLB.
“Let’s do this, Wenner: give me a few weeks and, if you like, I’ll come back to see you after the next holidays to talk about this too, but not only. There are a loads of other topics related to not just MLB.TVbut also to baseball, interesting to tell!”.
I’ll wait for you Christian.
At the moment, thank you.
You (or maybe us) have opened up a world to me.
Stay tuned!
Wenner Gatta | Lawyer and enthusiast of every type of sport since 1978, seen, mind you, from the privileged position of your home sofa. Since 2020 member of the Nicolodiana and Salvadorian telepcsportdipendenti association. His motto is: “Why follow only one sporting event, when you can watch many at the same time?”. Since March 2021 he has been curating the “Ultra Slow Mo” column on the pages of Sport In Media on a weekly basis where he tries to tell what is not seen about sport on TV. During the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, however, he published the column #undòujiāngdaBeijing daily on the pages of Sport in Media.
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