entrepreneurship at the intersection of sports media and the social graph

In the months since it launched mobile broadcast applications on the iPhone and Android mobile devices, Justin.tv has seen substantial growth in the number of live streams users uploading and viewing. But here’s a dirty little secret about the “live streaming” company: According to Justin.tv VP of Marketing Matt DiPietro, more than 90 percent of mobile streams uploaded aren’t actually watched until after the “live” broadcast is already over.

That’s one reason why Justin.tv is making vast improvements to the quality of video streams archived on its site. In previous iterations of its mobile apps, the quality of the live stream uploaded and archived on the site was dependent on the quality of the network that the user was shooting under.

While Justin.tv’s mobile apps do a good job of seamlessly adapting the quality of the stream to the bandwidth available to users, that doesn’t always translate into the highest-quality video available on demand. Despite the fact that the cameras in mobile devices are capable of capturing a high-quality stream, mobile videos shot under poor network conditions — on AT&T’s EDGE network, for instance — ended up with not only a low-quality live stream, but also a low-quality copy of the stream in the user’s archive.

To correct this, new versions of Justin.tv iPhone and Android apps — being released today — take advantage of something called frame re-insertion, which ensures that the best copy of a video makes its way into a user’s archive. It works by automatically uploading dropped frames in the background while the video is processing.The quality difference is shown in the video below:

JTV Frame Reinsertion from Matthew DiPietro on Vimeo.

The first half of the video shows what a mobile stream sent from an iPhone 4 over the EDGE network would look like to someone watching it live. But the second half of the video shows what the archived version available on the Justin.tv site looks like, after all of the frames captured during the shooting are re-inserted into the archived video.

DiPietro said in a phone interview that the new apps will give the 90-plus percent of people who watch those videos a high-quality experience rather than the lower-quality video they would have previously seen. For the growing number of users tuning in to streams recorded on low-bandwidth networks, that will be a welcome change.

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LTV of ON DEMAND is far greater than LIVE.

We’ve had a blast with our new Cord Cutters show, where we get to talk about how users can cancel their cable and still get access to all of their favorite programming online. But the one question we get more than any other is how users can watch live sports without a cable subscription.

Unfortunately for many avid sports fans, there is no ESPN for online video, no single answer for where you can watch all of the major sports leagues in one place. However, there are ways that you can catch most live sporting events online, if you put a little bit of effort into it. Below we’ve put together a list of all the sites and services you can use for watching MLB, NBA, NHL and even NFL games without having a cable connection.

Just one caveat: with the exception of the NFL, which has national video rights, most sports teams and leagues depend on local cable rights, which supersede online video distribution. Since sports teams get a good portion of their revenues from selling rights to local cable and broadcast stations, most have clauses that say nationally broadcast games will be blacked out in that local market — and the same goes for online distribution. So if you’re a Yankees fan trying to stream their games from home in the Bronx, you’re generally out of luck with online services.

	MLB	NFL	NBA	NHL
Service	MLB.tv	DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket To-Go	NBA League Pass Broadband	NHL Game Center Live
Price	$20/month, $100/season (2010 season)	$350	$120 for 7 teams, $190 for all teams	$170
Available devices	PCs, iPhone, iPad, Roku, PS3, Boxee	PCs, iPhone, iPad or Palm Pre, select Android, Blackberry & Windows Mobile devices	PCs, iPhone, iPad, Android mobile devices, as well as Roku, PS3 and soon Samsung TVs	PCs, iPad, Roku, Boxee and PS3

Using a Digital Antenna

Before getting into the online avenues for sports content, however, it’s probably worth noting that the easiest way to get a lot of live games, particularly around playoff time, is by purchasing a digital antenna. That will give most users access to live over-the-air programming from ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, giving them the ability to watch the majority of live NFL games, for instance, without having to pay for an online service.

Major League Baseball

Over the last several years, MLB has worked hard to create one of the premier live sports destinations online. MLB.tv has led the way for live streaming online, giving baseball fans the ability to watch all out-of-market games for $20 a month or $100 for the full season. But not only has MLB enabled viewers to tune in to live games on their PCs, it has extended viewing to mobile apps on the iPhone and iPad, and even onto TVs with apps on Roku broadband set-top boxes and PlayStation 3 game consoles. For the playoffs, MLB even makes live video feeds of all the games available on Postseason.tv, priced at just $9.99 for all games from the Division Series to the World Series.

National Football League

If live sports is the killer app for TV, the one thing that many viewers decide they can’t live without, and a reason not to cut the cord, then watching the NFL games online is the most frustrating task to accomplish. This is due to some very lucrative national broadcast rights, which give exclusivity to a few distributors and keep games from being streamed online. That means that while MLB, the NBA and the NHL are courting their fans online, the NFL is trying to keep its fans from being able to watch games online.

But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel: NBC acquired multiplatform rights through its Sunday Night Football deal, and over the past few years has streamed those games live online. (Surprisingly enough, those streams haven’t hurt NBC’s viewership, as Sunday Night Football has led in the Sunday ratings all season long.) And DirecTV, which has exclusive rights from the NFL to show all the games through its NFL Sunday Ticket offering, is now making live streams of all those games available online, so long as users are willing to pony up $350 for the season to watch games on their PCs, iPhone, iPad or Palm Pre, as well as select Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices.

National Basketball League

The NBA has a streaming product of its own, called NBA League Pass Broadband, which lets users watch games from around the league online or on select mobile and connected devices. League Pass Broadband has two flavors: one that costs $120 for the season and allows users to pick up to seven NBA teams they want to follow, and another plan for $190 that gives them access to all games from all 30 teams. The NBA, like Major League Baseball, also makes its video accessible over a wide range of mobile devices, and is working to get apps on connected devices like TVs and Blu-ray players. While NBA Digital has in previous years rolled out hundreds of mobile apps for iOS, Android and Blackberry mobile phones, it’s simplified things this year with a single, free app for each platform that lets fans buy additional features once it has been downloaded.

National Hockey League

The NHL has been working hard to rebuild its fan base after a lockout during the 2004/2005 season left fans without any hockey for a whole year. It also hurt viewership, since the league ended up striking a deal with cable network Versus, which isn’t as widely distributed (or as loved by sports fans) as ESPN, which previously had the NHL deal. Nevertheless, lack of widespread hockey coverage is no longer a problem, since the league has now launched its own streaming service, called NHL GameCenter Live. The service, which lets hockey fans watch up to 40 out-of-market games a week, costs $170 for the season, and also gives users access to streaming video on devices like the iPad, the PS3, Roku set-top boxes and the Boxee Box by D-Link.

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Cord-cutters are no threat to the subscription TV industry as long as sports fans are around. BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield conducted a survey of 1,200 multichannel TV subscribers and found that only a tiny percentage were likely to ditch their cable or satellite TV subscriptions in favor of online video, even though many more said they had considered it. The draw of live sports and premium shows is just too much for couch potatoes, and is likely to stay that way for years to come.

According to Greenfield's survey, 37 percent said they had at least thought about canceling their subscriptions and going online-only in order to save money. If it meant losing out on live sports or other favorite shows (particularly those that show live results), however, that number dropped to just eight percent. And, upon further examination of the data, Greenfield estimated that only five percent or less were actually willing to follow through on that claim, despite it apparently being "cool" to cut the cord.

It turns out that 93.5 percent of the households surveyed by Greenfield said that they regularly watch football, and 68.4 percent watch baseball. Other favorites include Mad Men (which, by the way, is available next-day on iTunes), American Idol (broadcast TV, no cable required), House (broadcast), Glee (broadcast), True Blood (OK, you got us there with an HBO show, though it does show up on iTunes after the season is over), and Dancing with the Stars (broadcast).

Judging by that list, it definitely seems as if the sports are indeed the major draw for keeping cable TV around, since almost all of the other shows can be watched within a reasonable time frame without cable.

That's not to say people aren't dabbling in online video, though. The majority of survey respondents had both streamed content from Hulu and purchased content from a service like iTunes or Amazon Video on Demand (almost 70 percent and 54 percent, respectively). Online video has been growing in popularity, after all, and even "regular" (non-geeky) users are becoming fans of Hulu and Netflix streaming.

Still, most users tend to view online video options as a supplement to their cable or satellite service, not a replacement. Numerous other surveys have supported this—Nielsen said last year that despite the growth in online video, 99 percent of all TV watching is still done on the  boob tube. Because almost none of the online content is being played on a TV, it's no surprise that users still want to get the bulk of their entertainment in front of the big screen.

"While we are concerned about the long-term potential of ‘over-the-top’ video, we simply do not view it as a major threat to the cable and satellite industries over the next three-five years," Greenfield wrote.

Further reading

• Cutting the cord may sound 'cool,' but 'very few' are likely to snip, survey says (news.yahoo.com)
• Poll: Netflix Subs Still Opt for Disc Rentals (homemediamagazine.com)