I thought it was a pretty cool idea, but one of the concerns I voiced turned out to be well-founded.

Over the weekend, Major League Baseball ran a free preview of its MLB.tv package via the PlayStation 3. It was the first chance I’ve had to check out live streaming content over a gaming console, and while I still think this method of content delivery has some promise, there are definite drawbacks to it as well.

The MLB.tv package definitely delivers an HD picture, but something about the image quality wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but it just didn’t look as good as a true HD TV feed. Blum tells me that what I was noticing was the difference in the amount of signal compression between the feed delivered via the Web and the one delivered through my DirecTV dish. It was still a nice, bright image, and definitely watchable, but just not at the full clarity I’m used to.

On another note, I do think the package had better interactive features than Blum gave it credit for. You can rewind a game to any point, and as you’re rewinding, the line score pops up on the screen and it highlights what inning it is. So on Sunday, I missed the Pirates’ two-run rally in the eighth inning that led to their 5-3 win against Cleveland. I rewound the game until the bottom of the eighth was lit up in the line score and was able to stop it right there and watch what I wanted. There’s also an archive, so you can go back and watch games you missed, which is a nice perk. And that rewind function lets you sift through all those games and quickly find the action you’re looking for. One thing I didn’t see was a box score/stats display. That would be extremely useful.

Overall, I was fairly impressed, though I think the compression issue is something these packages will need to solve in order for them to really gain traction.

My heavens, some actual news out of a trade show. Shocker!

Yesterday, sports powerhouse ESPN announced, at the E3 video game confab in LA, that it will enter into a two-year, exclusive deal with Microsoft to stream ESPN3 — formerly ESPN360 — over the Xbox 360 via its premium subscription service. The move answers Sony’s similar hookup with Major League Baseball that streams its live Web  service via the PlayStation 3.

Let us step back and behold the stories here:

• We see, yet again, the raw power for sports to command premium subscription dollars in the otherwise barren content wasteland that is the Web. Sports deals, even bad ones (more on that in a sec) now force the hand of even the world’s bad-ass video game box makers. I can’t wait for, say, the NFL to take its content to Apple with an iTunes deal. The fact is that as the great Web 3.0 shakeout  continues, sports will clearly not only be a survivor, it will be a winner.
• How crappy a deal is this Microsoft? I will have to double check it when I actually see the service, but from here, all Microsoft is getting is the ESPN3 streaming service that’s already available via the Web. The only plus is that it’ll be on Microsoft’s platform and not a on a competitor’s. Think about that: Microsoft is paying for the mere right to reshow ESPN content on a gaming platform. It is getting nothing unique. Whooa!
• Can Microsoft make good on its promise of adding unique interactive experiences to sports? The real shocker in sports tech is how lame Sony’s efforts have been to add content to the MLB material available on the PS3. Sure it’s cool to get games on a gaming box, but I’ve been underwhelmed at what those games are like, given that the PS3 is one of the most advanced pieces of computer hardware on the market.  Can Microsoft bring down the digital Berlin Wall that separates traditional linear sports and its interactive cousins? Or will the two domains remain as separated as ever?

However this breaks, the next 18 months on the Xbox and PS3 will be some of the most interesting in sports technology. In many ways, we are getting a critical early glimpse at what the next era in sports will actually be.

Stay tuned. Or rather stay plugged in.

Can’t David Stern and the NBA do any better than dumb ole ping pong balls to decide the fate of the league’s crap franchises?

Tonight, in Secaucus, NJ, behind closed doors, the league sets up a lottery machine with balls for the 14 teams who did not make the playoffs. These balls are supposed to weight the chances so the worst team gets the highest chance of picking first. But nobody outside the room sees anything; so who knows for sure. The mystery is meant to keep crap teams playing hard till the end of the regular schedule. And the ping balls are actually considered high tech by the NBA. Before that it used coin flips. No kidding.

Obviously, there are other choices for generating truly random results. The number generator on lottery.com is better than balls. And even dice does a better job for a real random number. Or better yet, go to Random.org and learn about the dozens of real ways to make a truly unique pick.

But such is the state of the National Basketball Association that blowing balls is the best they can do. Jackie Moon himself couldn’t make this stuff up.

“We at Fantas-Eh Football have created the ultimate Fantasy football experience for you, the loyal CFL football fan.  If you enjoy watching CFL football, this is your chance to take this exciting game to the next level.  You can now draft individual players and build the team you’ve always dreamed of.  Using our state of the art web application, you can now create a league with up to eight teams and engage in head to head competition!”

Unfortunately the site is not free and each league will cost you $79.99, but if you sign up before June 1st you can get in for $59.99.

I know I am getting ready for another round of Apple Superbowl spots. The web chatter is up that Apple will have some nifty ads for the big game  Apple Insider for example is saying that Apple Inc and Apple Corp. — one is the music company that the Beatles made. The other is the computer company Steve Jobs made, — will release some new Beatles tracks a la iTunes. Now sure, the move makes sense. Both companies want to get the digital word out. But I’m betting that fans can expect an iPad angle in this commercial. Since Cupertino would be insane to pass up a chance to drive a marketing message home about its new tablet computer.  Just take a look at what will be available for the game via the iPhone and the iPod touch. And this application does not even have a deal with the NFL.

The iPad and baseball … oh please that is just old hat. What’s really the cutting edge of displays? Board games! They’re a sport. Not a big sport, but they count. And there’s a way interesting new riff Organic Light Emitting Diode display technology that is, at least in the lab, making neat board games electronic. OLED Display.net is reporting, and many of the edgie tech blogs picked up, a new technology out of Queen’s University in Ontario that renders board games on mobile, changeable OLED displays. So if you are thinking of playing some table top baseball — and not wasting your time on the dumb iPad watching MLB —  these suckers will positively make that game rock. Simply place the paper like displays on any table and they render different images depending on the state of the game. Now on top of the cool factor, the big story here is how fast innovation is coming to next gen displays. If something as simple as a board game can be coolified, just think about what will happen in a stadium, or a sports bar? Probably the bar itself will be a display. Strange days ahead.

Sure the Wii is supposed to be the king of sports. But for our money we prefer a rippin fabulous game running on the fastest possible gaming platform, which is usually the PlayStation 3. But If a new family of PC games optimized to run on new hardware and software is any indication, The PS3 is losing its rendering edge. Just check out this demo for car race game Dirt 2..

Now what makes this average racer important is the quality of the image, the speed of the rendering and the depth of information being managed and displayed. Even on a crap computer just look at the details on the image above.

The secret here is Microsoft’s Direct X 11 programming environment that is now being optimized for gaming titles. The code can be optimized with the gobs of new processing power coming from the latest generation of PCs and suddenly pure play gaming platforms, even the vaulted PS3 cannot keep up.

Besides just being flat out fabulous to look at, the Direct X environment offers a solid portal for rich media into Web-based coding. And for sports programmers looking to make their events more interactive, this is big news. With this kind of programming power at hand, how far are we from FoxSports building rippen Direct X apps that run with say NASCAR, MLB or even the NFL.

Look for the line between TV and sports gaming to blur.

Now how silly would it be if the Vancouver Olympic sleeper techno hit was a fat Italian animated man on a snowboard. Yup Mario and Sonic are might just score big at the coming Winter Olympic Games.

Nintendo has modeled “Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games” after any one of a number of easy to play course, action and puzzle titles: Choose from the usual Nintendo staple of cuttie characters: Yoshi, Mettle Sonic or Mario himself. Pick a sport: say hockey, downhill, bobsled, long jump or maybe figure skating. Then wave your Wii sticks around. Do your best to get a gold medal. Madden it is not.

Reviews on the title have been flat to middling. With PC Magazine giving it an emphatic “good.” But it would clearly be a major mistake to ignore this title. Parents have been looking for a decent game to get for their by now aging Wiis. And Nintendo has had a hard time meeting demand. (Name even a decent good new Wii game?) And while Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games has almost nothing to do with the actual games — no known athletes and no real imagery from Vancouver. But the IOC 5 ring bug and the brand seems to be enough.

If early post holiday messing around is any indication, every kid we know seems to know or have this game. Competition in ski cross seems the most intense. And kids are getting smart about how to find quality Mario Olympic time: picture-in-picture of hockey worked well against the NHL Winter Classic.  For our 13 year olds, Mario was as entertaining in many ways as the Bruin’s goalie Tukka Rask.