Review of Orb Networks for Windows Media Center

In this week’s Lab Test I review Orb networks software which allows you to stream content from your PC to just about any type of device with an internet connection including another PC, laptop, cell phone and PDA. You need to install some software on your host computer with all of your content and then you access that content through the web. Orb currently is $9.99 a month and has a 2 month free trial.

Update: It was just announced today that Orb will be offering it’s software for free. It looks like they are going to try to get sponsors and content partners to pay the bills. This is good news for us. (Thanks Scoble for the heads up)

Simply open a Web browser on a computer, laptop, PDA or cell phone, log-in and select what you want to view or hear from your personal library. Orb's technology takes care of the rest. Orb's technology determines the best format, codec, bit rate, display capabilities, and network bandwidth available for a particular cell phone, PDA or laptop to view or hear the content. The media is streamed securely from the user's home PC to the user's device to provide fast mobile media access.

When you connect from a mobile device or remote PC, Orb will automatically detect your connection speed and the upstream bandwidth available from your home PC. Orb will then stream content at the highest quality available to you, providing the best possible experience your device and bandwidth can support.

Once you have the software installed on your computer you need to open a web browser and go login to your account. I tested Orb on my Media Center PC that is connected to a cable modem and my laptop that is connected to my home network using a wireless g router.

Main

The first time you login it will take Orb a few minutes to pull in all of your media files. You are automatically brought to your Favorites page which gives you a snapshot of all the media files available to you. With Orb you can stream live and recorded TV (as well as schedule TV recordings), listen to your mp3 collection and internet radio, view your photos as a slideshow and watch your videos. Orb uses Microsoft Windows Media Player or Real Networks to stream your content to you.

Settings

Orb automatically detects the connection of your device to the internet so it can stream your media at the best rate with the best quality. You can also select the default media player to use.

Audio

Clicking on the Audio tab brings up the list of available audio you can listen to. It pulls in your playlists from Windows Media Player (only your personal playlists, it does not seem to pull in the default Media Player playlists), all of your mp3’s and lists some internet radio stations.

Unfortunately Orb does not pull in your art covers for your music which is a shame and really should be added as any major media player now has that capability.

You can dig deep into your music collection down to the individual song but there’s still no art cover.

You get very little information about the song and it seems Orb does not pull in a lot of the meta data for the songs.

You can get your playlists pulled in which is a nice feature to have. I did not see any way to make your own playlist using the Orb software which would be another great feature to have.

Orb does give you some default radio stations to listen to but once I again I did not see a way to add any more stations.

Photo

Clicking on the Photo tab brings up a familiar screen with a list of options on how to view your photos. Orb does a good job of keeping the user interface simple and consistent throughout the different categories. The photo feature is the only Orb feature that does not use a media player: your photos are shown to you directly in the browser. You also have the option of doing a slide show.

If you click on your pictures folder then you can dig deeper into your collection. There was no thumbnail view of the photos in the folder, which is a feature I like in Windows XP.

Orb shows your photos in a folder as reduced images and then you can select an image to see it in full size.

One feature I did like is that you can rotate your image. I could see Orb adding a whole slew of photo editing features in the future.

At any time you can click the “play” button in the right hand corner and view your photos as a slideshow. Using the page up and page down keys you can go back and forth in a slideshow. I didn’t see a way to control the time intervals of the slideshow or any capability to select multiple folders for a slideshow.

Video

Orb can stream your videos to you using your default media player.

While you do not get a thumbnail view of videos in a folder, you do get a thumbnail view of an individual video file which I liked.

When you click on the video file to play it (or an audio file) you might get a message depending on your browser and media player that a live stream is going to be opened.

Orb pulls the video into Windows Media Player and streams it back to you. I have a broadband connection at home at a connection speed of 1.4Mbps and Orb tells me that my upstream connection speed is 571kbps. The video streams at about 447kbps for me and that is plenty fast to provide smooth playback. Another time I checked I was getting an upstream connection of 501kbps. Your upstream connection speed will depend on your ISP and what your download/upload connection bandwidth limits are. (Some people over at the Orb Green Button community said they were getting an upstream connection of 900kbps.)

TV

You can watch live TV (provided you have a TV tuner in your PC) and your recorded TV shows. The one downside to this is that your Media Center PC can’t be using the TV tuner at the same time, even if you have a dual tuner card. This is a big issue in my mind if you have a Media Center PC as someone might be watching TV while you’re trying to access your media remotely. Hopefully they can fix this.

You can get a listing of your TV channels but the guide is weak compared to Media Center or Tivo.

Once again the meta information is weak – no details on what the show is about. There is also very little information displayed when you are watching a live TV show.

The recorded TV section is nice as you can see a thumbnail of the show, the title and the length of the recorded video.

Other Settings

There are some additional settings where you can point to other folders such as networked folders for your media content and setup your TV guide listings.

Summary

Overall I think that the Orb software works really well to stream your content to other devices. I did not try Orb on a pda or cell phone and I think that those are much more interesting devices than a laptop. As long as you have a good DSL or cable modem connection then bandwidth shouldn’t be an issue. That being said, there are still a few issues that need to be worked out:

– You can be watching TV on the Media Center PC and Orb at the same time

– No DRM music streaming yet

– Not all formats supported for video and audio (Divx yes, Xvid no?)

– Interface needs some work in terms of being able to setup playlists and showing more meta data like art coverwork and TV show details

– Not sure if it works with a VPN or behind a work firewall?

The biggest issue I see is the price: I don’t think $9.99 a month is worth it. Unless you are on your laptop all of the time or really want to stream your media to your cell phone, I think the price is too high. A one time fee would of been a better option. You would be better off investing in a portable media center that doesn’t need an internet connection.

Update: As I was working on this review Orb just announced today that the software will be free, so for free software Orb will rock your media. I highly recommend checking this out, especially if you have multiple mobile devices.