New Silverlight Player is a step backwards for MLB.TV

I've been anything but impressed with the new Silverlight video player that MLB.TV is now using. In spring training it did give a live box score along with the video which was nice but for some reason that's not there anymore now that the real games are being played. Worse yet is how choppy and pixelated video looks in the new player plus when I use the new Silverlight player my computer slows way down and makes it hard to multitask. Fortunately I've figured out a way to get the games to play with the original Windows Media Player.

All you have to do is disable the Silverlight plug-in. In Internet Explorer simply click on "Tools" then "Manage Add-ons" then "Enable or Disable Add-ons." In the list box that opens find the plug-in named "AgControl Class" and disable it. Then when you launch your MLB video it will detect that you don't have the new player and give you the option to use the original media player. It won't look exactly like last years player but the video quality will be better by leaps and bounds and I find that the controls are easier to use then the Silverlight player.

To make the video go full screen all you have to do is right click on the video and select "Zoom" then "Full Screen." The one problem I am finding is that the video, even if it's 3x4 in appearance, is actually widescreen with black bars on the sides so the picture won't fill the entire screen even in fullscreen mode which is unfortunate and hopefully they will fix. I don't know much about Windows Media Player plug-ins but I wonder if there isn't one out there that will remove the black bars and play the video in a 3x4 format. That would sure be nice.

It certainly appears the new Silverlight Player is a work in progress so hopefully it gets better. It would be nice if they could integrate more information, like what you get in gameday, into the video player but if the video continues to be choppy it will still be a disappointment and step back. It's kind of like you can have a watch that is a virtual mini computer on your wrist but if it fails to quickly tell the time, it's still failure as a watch. That's enough deep thinking for now I guess. As long as they keep the option for the old windows media player I'll be happy.

Incidentally the Twins are now 1-0 when I watch them and 0-2 when I don't. MLB customer service still hasn't fixed my blackout problem so the Twins loosing streak continues :-) At least I'm starting to like the new gameday a bit better. It's nice that they give the type of pitch and speed now. Almost felt like I was watching Nick Blackburn's remarkable first start in the majors last night. Even though he lost 1-0, if he keeps pitching like that he's going to win a lot of games for the Twins.