Ah, March Madness… definitely amongst the top sporting events. The first two days are especially exciting, each consisting of about 12 hours of competition and, if we’re lucky, some amazing upsets. I have no idea who Northwestern State is, but they sure were dramatic in sending Iowa home.
As I mentioned last week, CBS is webcasting games for free via March Madness on Demand. So I decided to check it out and compare the service to Slingbox.
My CBS SportLine experience didn’t get off to a good start with a 10 minute wait (see image below) followed by a Marriott commercial before I could access the feeds. Once in, I had several games to choose from — though one was blacked out due to regional restrictions. I’m not certain if that was determined by my IP address and/or the information in my profile. The CBS SportsLine site had banner ads as promised, but what I hadn’t realized is that they’d also be serving commercials during time outs. Though, they must not have sold all their ad space as static “Stay Tuned” graphics often replaced commercials.
Both SportsLine and Slingbox reported low to mid 300Kbps down via my Sprint EVDO card… simultaneously. Fast motion sequences didn’t look great, though both were watchable in windows. Neither option scaled well to fullscreen, looking horribly blurry and pixilated during the action. Audio quality on both was perfect.
So how did I end up watching the games? I gave up on broadband and left work early Thursday and Friday. They just look better on a full size TV. I may not have access to all the games, but CBS has done a good job of keeping me updated with scores and highlights. They’ve also done a good job cutting away to exciting finishes. If I had been stuck at work, I would have used the Slingbox — it’s a lightweight interface that I can tweak without banner ads or queues. Also, unlike the SportsLine client that only had two video sizes (small or full screen) the SlingPlayer window can be stretched to any size allowing me to find a sweet spot. If you don’t have a Slingbox or if you follow a team that isn’t being broadcast locally, obviously March Madness on Demand is the way to go – and despite its limitations, the price is right.
My Slingbox feed obviously look better when the CBS feed was off. It seems more sensitive to bandwidth availability. Speaking of which, one of my main Slingbox limitations is my slow home DSL uplink. If I were to upgrade, I would probably experience better quality. Most shows, without the fast motion of a sporting event or action flick, look very good. By the way, the Slingplayer has some canned settings such as ‘high action’ which should help compensate for fast motion though I don’t know how or if it works.