Can I watch baseball on an airplane?

October 12, 2011 2:28 PM

Has anyone had any luck watching MLB.tv on an airplane?

I'm debating whether I want to pony up the $5 for inflight WiFi to watch the playoff game tonight. Has anyone had any luck using MLB.tv on an airplane? I'm worried that either a) the connection won't be fast enough or b) the location will mess with MLB.tv's blackout mechanism.

posted by slogger to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

I've never had any luck with any sort of video streaming via inflight wifi.
posted by bitdamaged at 2:39 PM on October 12, 2011

Streaming audio on mlb.com is free for the playoff games. I would imagine that in flight wifi can handle the audio stream. Baseball sounds better when it sounds like it's coming from a tinny AM radio anyway.
posted by COD at 4:47 PM on October 12, 2011

Before you pay $5, realize that MLB.tv's postseason coverage is horrible if you are in the US or Canada: you get nothing for the ALCS or the World Series. For the NLCS, you just get raw camera feeds with commentary. The camera won't track the ball. The best you can do is turn on the split screen so you're looking through several cameras at once and hope they stay in sync. Airplane or not, it is a pretty disappointing service if you are used to the regular season coverage.
posted by synecdoche at 7:02 PM on October 12, 2011