Apple TV and NHL : Anyone Have Experience With It?

[rob_mazur]

I have used CenterIce with Directv to watch NHL games for years....95%
of those games being Vancouver. I am nearly ready to discontinue with
Directv (to save $70/month) and go entirely with Apple TV, where you
can now subscribe to watch NHL games with Gamecenter Live. But I
don't know what the experience is like. Do you have access to all
games? Is the picture quality decent? Does the stream stutter at
all?

Anyone here have experience to share?

Thanks,
Rob

[Keith Keller]

I can't share Apple TV, but I can share streaming NHL GCL.

First, I tried streaming from my laptop (MacBook Pro 13") to my
television (Visio 42", forget exactly which model) over VGA. This
looked awful and was very choppy.

Next, I tried a somewhat cheap mini-DVI-to-HDMI adapter, which didn't
work at all (I'm assuming this was an Apple or OS X issue).

Next, I tried a mini-DVI-to-DVI, then DVI-HDMI adapter, streaming
through Firefox. This was much better, but I felt like the display
was still a little choppy.

Finally, I tried Boxee on my MBP using the same physical setup. This
was by far the best display; it was still slightly choppy, but much
better than any of the other configurations. I imagine that this setup
would be fairly similar to the Apple TV configuration: a ''dedicated''
appliance (or software) piping out to the television. Apple TV is
likely to be at leas as good, if not better, simply because of the
direct HDMI output with no intervening adapters.

Except for the choppiness out to the TV, I thought all the streams
looked very good. I don't know what the source of the choppiness is,
unfortunately--it could be the stream itself, where the 13" laptop
display doesn't expose it, or it could be the connection, or it could be
something about the TV.

As far as game content, from my home in San Francisco I get all games
that are not the Sharks and not on a national station (NBC or Versus/
NBCSN) and televised in the local market. I'm assuming that you do not
live in the Vancouver market area, since you can watch them on Center
Ice, so you should be fine with GCL, as the same blackout rules apply.

I recently did what you're proposing--dumped my satellite and switched
to GCL (though I never had Center Ice). I definitely feel like I get my
money's worth more out of GCL than $60/month of satellite, but I am
still somewhat disappointed that I haven't had a perfect viewing
experience to the TV. A few friends of mine have Apple TVs, which I may
try to borrow to see if it's any better; if so, that'd be the way to go
for me. So if you do it, please post your experiences for us.

--keith

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[feeniks©]

On Jan 3, 3:43 pm, Keith Keller <kkeller-use...@wombat.san-

francisco.ca.us> wrote:
> On 2012-01-03, rob_mazur <maz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I have used CenterIce with Directv to watch NHL games for years....95%
> > of those games being Vancouver.  I am nearly ready to discontinue with
> > Directv (to save $70/month) and go entirely with Apple TV, where you
> > can now subscribe to watch NHL games with Gamecenter Live.  But I
> > don't know what the experience is like.  Do you have access to all
> > games?  Is the picture quality decent?  Does the stream stutter at
> > all?
>
> > Anyone here have experience to share?

>
> I can't share Apple TV, but I can share streaming NHL GCL.

I love GCL - but the main reason I subscribed was because I don't have
cable, don't want cable, and a few years ago the blackout restrictions
on home games were lifted so I could watch Coyotes games (for Canucks
games I was so used to listening to CKNW streaming actually watching a
Canucks game I wasn't at was ... weird.. ANYHOO). - I didn't renew
this year, not because it's expensive, which it isn't IMO for what you
get, but mostly because Mr fee is home in the evenings now, and my
hockey games cluttering up his bandwidth caused a bit of a kerfluffle.
Wasn't worth it for as little time as I could actually watch it
without ticking off the spousal unit. AND the Coyotes games are now
blacked out. My GCL actual experience is pretty good - the feed may
start out a little blocky, but resolves quickly. I stream to my 27"
iMac, so it's a decent sized picture if I am a few feet away, or I can
split the screen and surf while the game is going on.

Actual content is pretty decent - like I said, more than well worth
what the monthly fee is, especially if you might watch more than one
game a night. Another thing I liked too is that for some games you
could switch broadcasts - from the visiting team's feed to the local
team's feed - useful when the homerism is starts to really grate on
your nerves.

I might be tempted to try Apple tv, if I thought I could get the local
games. Until there is a solution for that, I'll probably pass.

[Keith Keller]

On 2012-01-04, feeniks� <die.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My GCL actual experience is pretty good - the feed may
> start out a little blocky, but resolves quickly.

This is somewhat intentional--the stream starts off at the lowest
bitrate, to make sure your link can support it. As the stream
progresses, it determines if your link can handle higher bitrates, and
jacks up the rate if it thinks it can. (I don't know exactly how they
do this--perhaps some combination of dropped packets and reserving some
bandwidth for speed testing?) Before I started having issues with my
ADSL2, I was routinely getting the best bitrate (1.5Mbps, IIRC) fairly
comfortably.

> Actual content is pretty decent - like I said, more than well worth
> what the monthly fee is, especially if you might watch more than one
> game a night. Another thing I liked too is that for some games you
> could switch broadcasts - from the visiting team's feed to the local
> team's feed - useful when the homerism is starts to really grate on
> your nerves.

So, you're basically screwed when Pittsburgh plays Detroit.

> I might be tempted to try Apple tv, if I thought I could get the local
> games. Until there is a solution for that, I'll probably pass.

Apple TV, AFAICT, is just an appliance. You still purchase an NHL GCL
subscription, and are therefore still subject to their blackout
restrictions. So it's probably not something you're interested in at
the moment.

Because I'm still hoping to get better picture quality, I was looking
again at cable rates. Holy crap! The cheapest package which carries
NBCSN is at least $40/month, plus I'd still pay $160/year for Center
Ice. Is slightly better picture worth at least $480 a year? I have to
say no.

BTW, if you are interested in using your GCL subscription over 3G, it
mostly sucks. It might be better over 4G if you have it.

[Matt]

Yeah i think its pretty good, for 20 bucks a month you can watch any
game you want, i'm overseas so theres no blackouts for me ya see.
Theres a 400, 800, 1500 and 3000 kbps connection speeds you can choose
from. Although the 3000kbps speed is best i usually keep it at 800k to
save on my download limit, when you take bandwith into consideration i
dont really think theres to much advantage with the higher 1500 and
3000 speeds apart from the audio, the 400 speed is pretty crap though.
From what others in here have posted previously, if your teams out of
market or you want to watch more games it's worth getting, i have no
complaints anyway.