Russ posted today about Orb going free. First, I had never even heard of Orb. So I went to see what they were all about. Here’s the gist of it. You install their application on your Windows machine. It makes your videos, music, photos AND television available on any network enabled device. That includes another computer, your PDA or your cellphone.
So you get the software installed on your machine. If you have a TV tuner card, you give it your zip code and it lets you select your TV provider. It then grabs the listings for your provider. From there, you can log into the web interface. On the web interface, you can tune into any available channel and watch it using Windows Media Player. Alternatively, you can tell Orb’s built-in DVR to record something. When it’s done recording, you can view it later through a similar mechanism.
This is totally perfect for me. I work away from home 3 days a week. During those days, I don’t get to see much television. With Orb, I could watch my television remotely. Nothing on? Watch something you recorded earlier. Nothing you recorded? Watch some video you downloaded or ripped from a DVD. Orb will even do speed detection of your connection to determine what quality of stream it can get to you without dropping frames. I’ve only tested this at home, so it’s unclear what quality I can expect when I’m away from home. But anything is better than nothing.
And it’s dead simple to install. Just download the executable and run it. I didn’t even have to tell it anything about my Hauppauge tuner card, it automagically detected and configured it. Now I just need a cellphone with networking and video capabilities.