How to: Stream all media (inc live TV) across the internet

[Brocklander]

Orb has been around for a little while now, but it required a fee when it first launched. It's now free though, and I don't think there's anything else out there like it.

Orb lets you stream live TV, your recorded TV programs, as well as any video, music and photo folders you choose. It uses a web interface on the client end, and Windows Media Player (Real and are 3GP are alternatives) for re-encoding to formats based on your connection speed. This means you can use a PC, Mac, PDA, and some mobile phones (that support 3GP) as clients.



As it primarily uses Windows Media Player for your media, you'll need codecs on your server to let the formats play in WMP and therefore be encoded to WM9 for streaming - just the same as you'd need to play the media in Media Portal.

So if you can play everything you want to stream in Windows Media Player, you're fine. If not, here are the two programs I use.

FFDShow - plays virtually everything.
3ivx - primarily for MP4, MOV and M4A/AAC (Quicktime stuff)

This lets me play almost any type of media - except H.264 HD stuff from Apple Trailers, and M4V which is primarily used for video podcasts in iTunes. Oh well.

Anyway, there's no harm in downloading it to try it out. Setup is simple, it uses port 80 so you don't have to touch your hardware firewall.

You can use the Media Portal Web Scheduler for your program guide and scheduler, as the Orb one only supports USA channels and Windows MCE.

Re-encoding to WM9 uses about 60% CPU in my system, this gives me 320x240 video. However I think this resolution is due to New Zealand's shit broadband network, the fastest upload speed is limited on all ADSL connections here to 128kbps. Backwards bloody country.

[Taipan]

Originally Posted by Brocklander

Backwards bloody country.

Well, I never thought I would see the day that a New Zealander would actually admit it...... :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Brocklander]

Originally Posted by Taipan

Well, I never thought I would see the day that a New Zealander would actually admit it...... :lol: :lol: :lol:

Hehe, it's THAT frustrating :?