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G
gbye
Known Participant
May 16, 2012
Question

Adobe Flash and the MLB.TV Baseball season current ongoing spinning circles problems

  • May 16, 2012
  • 1 reply
  • 17756 views

Is Adobe aware of the current ongoing problems with MLB.TV streams that are succumbing to the so called "Spinning Circles " problem that is widely discussed at MLB.TV Support Forum?

In the forum MLB.TV has not detailed what constitutes the MLB.TV media player as far as full components makup.  It is widely known, however that Adobe Flash and a product known as  NexDef are involved as prime components and probably are the culprits for the problem that some MLB.TV Premium paid subcribers have been experiencing from say 6 APR 2012 thru 14 Apr 2012 and continuing so far.

Has Adobe been helping MLB.TV try to solve the issue. If not , please read the MLB.TV support forum and recognize that Adobe will probably be red flagged, if not already, as flawed, and thus IMHO will lose thier MLB.TV contract to Microsoft Silverlight again ... at least until HTML5 comes  along eventually to save the day ... I hope.

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1 reply

chris.campbell
chris.campbell
Legend
May 18, 2012

I wasn't aware of this problem.  I'll forward this along to our video team for their review.  Could you provide us with some links to the threads on the MLB support forums?

Thanks,

Chris

G
gbyeAuthor
Known Participant
May 22, 2012

Chris,

I have now asked the MLB.TV Support Forum about the possibility of providing researchers from Adobe a temporary login temporarily view the MLB.TV Support Forum pages that apply to the streamed video Visual Quality problem (now also know "abnormal spinning circles"

I have visited Adobe's:

bugbase.adobe.com

but because of required entry portions in the web form format, I now have a few preliminary questions on certain entries.

I want the bug report to reflect circumstances of all impacted paid subscribers, but Adobe's form fillout only provides mutually exclusive selects etc. that would make the bug report less than ideally representative. 

I have set up Adobe Case Number 0208405348 by phone today in an effort to discuss this matter and all my other posts in this Adobe forum.

As it turns out, all my posts are indeed all interrelated to the use of Adobe Flash plugin and/or Shockwave Flash when troubleshooting the MLB.TV media player flaws.

Will you please contact me by phone or private mail.

As we go, along, and assuming you have not yet been able to log in and view the MLB.TV Support Forum at posttime, I will add new subpost links as you had requested.  for example this link:

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=13800469

may be reachable publically. It provides an MLB.TV tutorial on how to setup the dreaded (and "... sometimes disabled ...") NexDef software.

NexDef was reportedly originally written by Justin Chapweske of Swarmcast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzs9QcnDPPU

Swarmcast is a company that, IIUC, is either Google-search-string OOB (Out-Of-Business), or at the very least, no longer involved with NexDef as used by MLB.TV.

NexDef seems to no longer work properly as intended in conjunction with (the) Adobe Flash component(s) in the MLB.TV player. IMHO, these two primary player components seem to conflict with one another as both want to conduct quality adjustments automatically at timed or triggered intervals.

If these adjustments trigger and run PROPERLY and BRIEFLY say ONCE A GAME and lock the resultant quality that would be OK. I think that's what happened last season but this season things have been different.

Notabally, Even if NexDef is not installed the quality issue this year persists ... Does this imply that Adobe alone is at fault? or are there newer implementations or component additions to the MLB.TV media player that are giving Adobe Flash or Nexdef a bad name?

By the Way (BTW), the tutorial mentions ways for users to adjust Visual Quality and more importantly how users can determine the Visual Quality level that works for their receipient hardware and software configuration. This user guided customization has reportly worked just fine for impacted users in the past ... Their settings STUCK. This year (6 April 2012 thru 22 May 2012 and continuing) their chosen settings do not STICK. IMHO, The faulty interplay between Adobe and NexDef is a likely root cause. That's why we need your (Adobe) help.

Thanks

G
gbyeAuthor
Known Participant
May 26, 2012

A bit more info from my side.  From what I understand, this is actually an issue with MLB's usage of a technology called SwarmCast.  It appears to be Flash but is not.


When I set up this thread I focussed on the MLB.TV media player by saying that"

"... It is widely known, however that Adobe Flash and a product known as  NexDef are involved as prime components and probably are the culprits for the problem that some MLB.TV Premium paid subcribers have been experiencing from say 6 APR 2012 thru 14 Apr 2012 and continuing so far .."

(Oh , let's update that timestamp for the purposes of this reply to "..." from say 6 Apr 2012 thru 24 May 2012 and continuing so far)

Chris, please be advised that NexDef  IS indeed "... Swarmcast ..." from a MLB.TV Support Forum users/mods/admin perspective. Yes, from their perspective and mine SWARMCAST and NEXDEF are one and the same.

BTW, since NexDef is also componentized software, you may also see it referred to as Autobahn.  

With all due respect to you, the right honorable gentleman (TRHG) (I enjoy watching the British Parliment), I "... totally agree with the right honorable gentleman ..."  that:

Swarmcast's NexDef is a bad actor here . So far, at least this season, it is has been both a very disruptive delivery agent and an uncontrollable visual quality meddler.

Look, we all know that Adobe Flash may adjust video quality inherently from time to time (spinning circles or equivalent visual timer-timeout) on flash content

BUT:

MLB.TV media player also uses NexDef as a plugin to adjust video quality automatically to the MLB.TV ideal known as High Definition (HD) for High-enders (devices and configs that can handle HD).

BUT:

NexDef also allows, via a MLB.TV interface, Low-enders to manually adjust Visual Quality to suit their devices and configs. Low-enders would be OK with this if it worked but this baseball season

it is NOT  working properly.

 

IIUC, NexDef is a two headed beast that handles:

   1. the stream (adaptive bit rate streaming, manages CDN hopping etc)

    and

   2. the features implementation interface (plugin) that encloses the actual game video (frame, or window) that is viewed.

Whomever is the technical go-to for (Swarmcast's) NexDef should INDEED be involved with Adobe and MLBAM in the troubleshoot that eventually FIXes this problem.

 

BUT:

Will TRHG recognize ... that in the meantine, I will remain unconvinced that Flash is exempt from some culpability, in part,  perhaps,  because, at least officially, MLB Advanced Media continues to do Flash-flagging:     

  A couple notions here:

  The game video can be right-clicked and the Adobe classic .... Settings and Global Settings panels  (please don't get me started on the failings of that interface) are made available during the game.

  MLB.TV Support Forums Moderators and Admin are notorious for mantra-trythising and mantra-trythating the user with Adobe "Settings and Global Settings" adjustments.

  As recently as yesterday one of the MLB.TV Support Forum modererators posted:

  

    To:jaimet

    1:37 PM

     15411.5 Reply to 15411.4

     ForumModerator1

     ForumModerator1 Posted by host

     Posts:8063

    Are you currently on the latest flash player? We are trying to figure out if the latest flash player is what is causing the issue.

   

So ... this to my point that Adobe (Flash) has been characterized as "... red flagged ... " or "as flawed".

Again, ADOBE STAFF SIMPLY MUST-DO-A-MUST READ OF THE MLB.TV SUPPORT FORUM to be fully informed.

Now to Swarmcast :

  I have spent some time reasearching Swarmcast, the adaptive bit rate streaming, the CDN hopping, the feature interface etc. Have you tried researching that company yet? It is going to be fun... more later ...

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