Giants Announce Free Streaming

I'd say there's an 80% chance of it being restricted to Japan only. The thing about Internet streaming is, what's the point if you restrict it to Japan? Everyone can watch games on TV, for the most part. Why would I watch the Mariners on MLB.tv when I can walk over to my couch and watch it on Fox Sports? It seems most of the people who pay for the MLB streams are people with no access to the games, mostly because they had to move to another state or country.

Here's hoping the Giants aren't stupid enough to lock out the stream. They have a Taiwanese pitcher in the rotation and a Korean #4 batter. It'd be foolish to restrict coverage to Japan when Japan really doesn't tune in to Giants games on NTV like they used to in the '90s.

Is it working? Was anybody able to watch a game?

- Is it working? Was anybody able to watch a game?

The service is up, as you can tell here, but every time I go to play it prompts me for Media Usage Rights, so I'm afraid the outlook doesn't look so good.

I have gotten around the restrictive streaming by using Hide MY IP 2007. By using a Japanese proxy I am able to watch the games at Yahoo! Japan. The quality is incredible and I am watching the games on a 46" LCD with a picture that looks like high def. Do yourselves a favor and buy this inexpensive program. You will be able to enjoy all the available games.

Looked at Hide My IP 2007, but it only seems to provide US, Canadian, or UK IPs. Where do you input a Japanese IP?

When using Hide My IP 2007, click on advanced settings, then in IP Address Preferences check use open-network IP addresses, then check use proxy field method for Internet Explorer. Click apply and OK. Then you will have to hit change IP until a Japanese IP address comes up.

Forgive me for smelling a rat here, but I think you could be working with the people behind this program. Japanese IPs aren't mentioned anywhere with this program. The other thing that made me suspicious is the claim that the feed is like HD. 700k is nice, but it's far from HD.

I highly suggest people to use tact before purchasing this program.

I agree with BigManZam and I would say avoid this program as only U.S., Canadian, and U.K. proxies are supported by this, rendering it pretty useless if you want to watch Japanese Baseball. If Brian can prove otherwise, then great. But I am not so sure.

I, too, smell a rat here.

I have tried changing my IP address to a Japan IP using the program Proxy Switcher (who's trial version is fully working). And I still wasn't able to watch anything (neither the Giants nor Yahoo! Japan).

If anyone is able to, I'd really like to know about it.

I don't work for the company - I am just trying to help you guys out. But if you don't want to invest the $29.95, so be it. All I know is I am going to enjoy watching Marine games this season. Right now my IP is 220.213.215.158. Check out where that IP is at [IP Address Location].

Thanks for the help Brian, it is much appreciated. My only question is with regard to "Hide My IP 2007." How do you get a Japanese IP as they do not seem to be offered in the program? Or am I missing something?

Thanks.

The way you get the Japanese IP is to follow my instructions and keep hitting on change my IP until one for Japan comes up. You DON'T need the Premium Service. If I was indeed a rat, then I would tell you to purchase the Premium Service at $7 additional per month.

I promise you, the transmission is the clearest I have ever seen, at Yahoo Japan. It blows away MLB.com.

You will get IPs from all over the world; i.e. Korea, Bulgaria, Russia, Canada, each time you click change my IP - but eventually Japan will come up.

I don't understand the negativity here. You get a free 3 day trial. If you can't get it to work, just cancel.

I sent an e-mail to the company asking if it was possible to get an IP address from Japan using Hide My IP 2007 (to watch streaming on Yahoo Japan). A certain Brent Hather responded to me saying that it is not yet possible.

Oh and by the way, the trial version offers only 1 IP address. It is therefore impossible to see if it is working.

I would advise to be careful before buying it.

You guys are unbelievable. If I could figure out how to post a screen shot of the game I would post it. I tried using Snagit - but couldn't get it to work while watching the Marines game last night - but when I do I will prove to all you naysayers that Hide My IP 2007 works perfectly. If anyone has an easy way to post screen shot - I will post a screen shot of Hide My Ip showing a Japan IP and of the game.

The reason for the negativity is very simple. There are a lot of astroturf (fake grass roots) advertisement campaigns on forums. Some anonymous user will start posting about a product, defending it against any criticism, often with explanations about undocumented features.

Brian, you are an anonymous poster who has no verifiable posts under this name as part of this community. As cynical as it may be, that makes you suspect. There are many people who post anonymously, but do so often with the same name or handle so that people can build up an idea about their areas of expertise. That doesn't mean that first time posters don't have credibility. It just means that their credibility is unknown.

Furthermore, it looks to many like you are defending this product as though you have a personal stake in it. Your explanation for how to get a Japanese IP address has not been duplicated by others attempting it. The product's own support people have said that it isn't possible.

There is something wrong here, and that's what people are saying.

I would rather see a cross-platform solution to this problem, such as the use of free and open anonymizers. I don't trust Microsoft-only solutions as they tend to have spyware, adware, and/or nagware built in. (Besides, I overwrote my last Microsoft partition on January 1, 2000 at the stroke of midnight. I never want to go back to that nightmare of an operating system.)

People are suspicious of this product for very good reasons. Your posts have all the signs of an astroturfer. I didn't believe that BigManZam wasn't a front for video game producers at first, and he proved me wrong. But he also had a history of posting about Japanese baseball, acting as part of this community.

My recommendation is to stay away from anything that requires an application to be installed.

Hey Brian, welcome to the site. As Westbaystars-san intimates in statements like "... part of this community", "many people... post anonymously, but... people can build up an idea about the[m]" and "BigManZam... had a history of posting about Japanese baseball, acting as part of this community", we look forward to you participating in other topics on this site, too.

You're obviously a fan of (or at least curious about) Japanese baseball, so you've come to the right place. You've made the point about the IP anonymizer, so now stick around and chew the fat about baseball; you'll have fun.

Anybody in America get this working? Maybe on a GNU/Linux box? Maybe (dare I dream) on Ubuntu?

- Anybody in America get this working?

I haven't been able to get it to work. Earlier it prompted me for a Media Usage rights prompt.

Sadly, these games seemed blacked out or locked out (choose your preference of words), for what ever reason, once again, that NPB teams insist on blocking games out to non-Japanese ISP's is beyond me. The head ups in NPB teams have lost me a long time ago with their restrictive practices.

The Hawks Internet Broadcast Service for overseas will work on Linux. Scroll down to the third connection method and click on the "100k" link. VLC (Video Lan Client) works. This is the only stream I've been able to verify this season.

Hope this helps.

Big warning about Hide My IP 2007. My brand new desktop computer has been down for a couple weeks now. When I restart the computer, it won't even open the desktop. Well, I found a way to scan my computer for viruses via DOS, and look what I found.

Hide My IP 2007 contains a trojan. Do not download, and scan your computers immediately with the latest virus definitions.

Hi,

I just came back from my first Japan trip. On the first day, although I was never interested in baseball at all, by coincident I visited the Tokyo Dome and saw a match where the Giants hit 3 home runs in one inning. From that moment, every time I was in a Hotel I zapped around the TV to look the next Giants game.

Now back in Germany I found this thread and have some hope to see more Giants matches.

Does anybody know the system requirements for streaming the games because I'm on a Mac? Has anybody already had success watching the stream?

Best regards

Uli

According to their live streaming page at game time, it's only available to those who have sold their soles to Bill Gates. You couldn't pay me to use anything by Microsoft, so that leaves me out.

I went through the JavaScript on the page, and they went to great lengths to hide the actual stream's URL. I've been able to get a number of streams in the past by finding the stream URL in the scripts and entering them directly into MPlayer and/or VLC (both available on Mac, FreeBSD, Linux, and even that Redmond OS). No luck this time. The URL appears to be hidden in the Flash application. And the Flash application expects to be able to run Microsoft's media player.

If there are any people out there still using Microsoft products, and you have a network monitor/filter, could one of you let us know what the direct stream URL is? Instead of http:// at the beginning, it'll be mms:// at the beginning.

Brian was right after all. I bought Hide My IP (I just had to try). And I was able to watch tonight's Fighters-Buffalos game. The streaming quality is incredible. Altough you have to be patient (to find a Japanese IP).

And I checked everything, no viruses on my computer.

A good, free network monitor for Windows is ZoneAlarm. Even though it's a Closed Source application, I have several friends I trust who highly recommend it.

What you can do with it is require all outbound Internet requests to be approved. It's very annoying at the beginning, but you'll be able to see where sites are actually communicating with - and if there are any requests to sites that you aren't making. This is how you can find where video streams are originating from.