{"id":310,"date":"2009-11-20T20:53:11","date_gmt":"2009-11-21T03:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mpsharp.com\/blog\/?p=310"},"modified":"2009-11-20T20:53:11","modified_gmt":"2009-11-21T03:53:11","slug":"watching-nfl-games-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mpsharp.com\/?p=310","title":{"rendered":"Watching NFL games online"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the upsides of having a Home Theater PC<\/a> connected to your big screen is the ability to watch streaming media from the comfort of your couch.\u00a0\u00a0 With that in mind, I’ve been playing with various online streaming sites to watch out-of-market NFL games as well as been investigating streaming technology for my own business use.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are basically three categories of service out there:\u00a0 Legitimate offers with NFL licensing, pirate P2P sites and a couple offshore fraud sites after a quick credit card charge.\u00a0\u00a0 Let’s call them: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.<\/p>\n

The Good<\/h3>\n

Or the legitimate sites.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First of all, the NFL is streaming every Thursday night game on the NFL Live<\/a> site.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The coverage of the game is a little different than the standard TV coverage, but I actually like it better.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In this format, they’ve decided to not be so concerned with realtime tracking of the game.\u00a0 Instead, they will often cut away from the game to highlight the last touchdown drive or other interesting set of downs.\u00a0\u00a0 This includes detailed slow-motion\/rewind\/whiteboard analysis which football strategy fans such as myself are sure to appreciate.\u00a0\u00a0 It reminds me of post game film review back with the coaches in High School, just with better technology.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They then cut back to the game with the luxury of jumping back in time if something interesting happened, or simply catching you up on the current action.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Currently, there are far fewer commercials in the stream than you would see on TV (the stream is pretty heavily front-loaded before the action starts). Its been awesome being able to watch the game online because then I can also play my casino game at https:\/\/imhighroller.com\/reviews\/genesis-casino-review\/<\/a>. On the downside, the player does NOT allow you to expand the video to full screen.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is also resolution aware, so decreasing your resolution will not make the image any larger.\u00a0\u00a0 The one trick that does work is using the Windows magnifier app, but you have to make sure not to bump your mouse.\u00a0\u00a0 Also, hit F11 to hide your browser bar and tabs.<\/p>\n

\"NFL<\/a>
NFL Live<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As you can see, the quality is nothing special, but much better than you’ll get off the P2P sites listed below. \u00a0 Also, definitely not a simple 10ft interface for the naive Media Center user, but easy enough if you have a wireless keyboard.<\/p>\n

ESPN 360<\/a> has a streaming player\u00a0 download which will expand to full screen mode.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The quality is definitely a step up from above.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It appears the player can handle HD video, but it appears most the content is in SD format.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the big screen, you still get a number of lighting and compression artifacts coming through.<\/p>\n

\"ESPN<\/a>
ESPN 360 Video quality<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While they have plenty of MLB and NBA games, along with College and CFL football, I have yet to see any NFL games here.\u00a0\u00a0 They are also partnering with Comcast, who is exploring more streaming options for paying customers via comcast.net.\u00a0\u00a0 There may be some potential here, but given the traditional tight-fisted greediness of the NFL, I wouldn’t hold my breath.<\/p>\n

Finally, the NFL also offers Game Rewind<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is actually an impressive service.\u00a0\u00a0 For $24.99 (mid-season price) you get access to the entire archive of 2008 and 2009 seasons.\u00a0\u00a0 So in order to write a complete review, I just had to order and try it…<\/p>\n

The video quality is by far the best out of all the options.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It happens to use the same player as ESPN360, which means ESPN could be streaming this same quality if they wanted to.<\/p>\n

\"Best<\/a>
Best Video quality by far<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once again, the full 1920×1200 image.\u00a0\u00a0 The snapshot doesn’t really do the picture justice.\u00a0\u00a0 There may be some loss in the PNG compression as well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So I’m pretty happy with the quality, but I suspect I won’t use this all that much.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is a mode which will let you watch 4 games at a time, switching 3 small screens into the main one.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It seems like a great idea, but the fact none of this is available until after the game is over, it’s difficult to even justify the $25.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I probably should of done the $7.99 for one week just to check it out.\u00a0\u00a0 Not a bad option if there’s one game you missed and you just have to see it.<\/p>\n

On my wish list for both of these is a Media Center plug-in and the ability to control the app with the remote.\u00a0\u00a0 I may hack something together to do this in my copious spare time.<\/p>\n

The Ugly<\/h3>\n

So the truth is, you want to watch your game when its actually happening, and not after you’ve seen the score go by on the ESPN Ticker.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well it turns out you can do this, but now we’re probably crossing some DMCA lines, especially as far as the NFL is concerned.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the otherhand, these games are being broadcast over the air in other markets.\u00a0\u00a0 If I have a very powerful TV antenna which gets a signal from another market, who’s to say I’m violating any copyrights?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, if you want, you can think of the following as antenna extenders:<\/p>\n

There are basically three or four sites out there that act as a central clearing house for users who happen to be streaming a particular NFL game. Unfortunately, the quality is extremely variable, if you can get the stream at all.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here are some I’ve had some luck with:<\/p>\n

MyP2P<\/a> – Will usually show you a number of streams to choose from for each game.\u00a0 All the streams require some sort of StreamTorrent <\/a>player.\u00a0 Quality is actually improved if there are more people near you watching the stream.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the sites appear to be in the EU or Australia, which tells me the NFL cracks down on these when it can.\u00a0 They also show various TV shows including some premium channels, but I really can’t imagine trying to watch those at this quality level given so many other choices.<\/p>\n

Justin.tv<\/a> – Justin.TV seems to have higher quality streams using a built in flash player.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Of course since they are a legitimate company based in the US, they need to be a little better behaved.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t know if they proactively filter for the NFL games or not, but after the first quarter or so,the game is often\u00a0replaced with a DMCA take-down notice.\u00a0\u00a0 Here’s a snapshot from this weekend’s Minnesota game.\u00a0\u00a0 Although the quality is low, the feed appears to be the Fox satelitte feed in that there are no commercials.\u00a0\u00a0 Probably coming from overseas:<\/p>\n

\"Justin.TV<\/a>
Justin.TV Fox Football Feed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ATDHE.NET<\/a> These folks appear to be based out of France.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s also a clearing house, so you may get an mms stream which Windows Media Player can handle or sometimes it seems to redirect you back to Justin TV.<\/p>\n

UStream.tv<\/a> – UStream is another legitimate company which will probably take down an NFL game fairly quickly.\u00a0\u00a0 They are partnering with many content producers, so they will have other high quality broadcasts.<\/p>\n

There are other similar sites as well, often they will point back to one of the three above.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The problem with most of these is that they take advertising from some very questionable players…<\/p>\n

The Bad<\/h3>\n

So even a google search for NFL streaming will bring a couple of these shysters up in the ad blocks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They basically try to sell you either a PC Satellite TV or a tag line like “Watch NFL<\/strong> & College Football Online<\/strong> Access All Games Live in HD Quality”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, I bet my AdSense plugin pulls a couple of them up right now:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What these slimballs do is charge you somewhere between $29-99 and then redirect you to the sites listed above. I’ve listed a couple of them here, with the names edited so they don’t get any free SEO<\/a> out of my posting.<\/p>\n