Orb Networks
Orb v1.00.0393
April
19,
2005
Review by:
Adam Z
Lein, Senior Editor
Jump to: PAGE 1 | PAGE 2
INTRODUCTION
Ever wonder what
it would be like to watch live TV on your Pocket PC?
How about having access to your entire media library
including recorded TV shows, a couple hundred gigs
of music, photos, and videos? Well, that’s what you
get with Orb. Orb is a service that gives you a
password protected web-based portal to your home
Media Center or Windows XP Media Library. The portal
is accessible via a number of wireless devices
including Pocket PCs. For this review I used Orb
with my home Media Center 2005 machine and my
imate JAM Windows Mobile device.
SETUP
Initial setup occurs on the Media Center
PC side. You have to first sign up online and then download and install
the Orb server software.
Setup on your Media Center
basically involves installing the software, logging
in with your username, and entering your zip code in
order to select your TV listings.
PROGRAM FEATURES
Discuss everything about the product’s operation.
What does it do? Step through wizards, any drop-down menus, etc.
This is how the website looks in
single column view.
The Default view with Pocket IE
works better than the single column view.
The TV page gives you access to
Live Local TV streaming from your home Media Center
PC, Internet TV, and Recorded TV already resident on
your Media Center.
Tapping on the Local TV link gives
you a listing of all your channels and what’s
currently playing. The “Get Channel” field is a
quick way of jumping to a specific channel. There’s
no way to quickly jump to a specific day and time
though.
Tapping on a channel brings up
more info along with a number of icons at the top.
The two blue ones in the upper right allow you to
record or play the selected program. The three
yellow ones are more difficult to figure out. You’ll
just have to press them and see what happens. Okay
okay, I’ll tell you. The first one goes to the tools
page, the second saves the current location, and the
third makes a favorite.
The Videos page lets you sort your
“My Videos” collection in a couple different ways.
When you get to a folder with
actual videos, they show up with their filenames and
little thumbnail images. Be warned that some video
types that are supported by Media Center are not
supported by Orb’s streaming software. You can
expect Orb to be able to convert all of the
different video codecs into formats compatible for
streaming.
You have to tap on the video name,
wait for the above page to display, and then tap on
the blue play icon in the upper right in order to
start playing the video. I’d much rather have a
little “Play” link in the listing.
The photos section lets you view
all of the tens of thousands of pictures that you
may keep on your Media Center PC.
A folder listing containing photos
shows you thumbnails of all the images. The blue
play icon in the upper right creates a slideshow in
Internet Explorer that automatically downloads and
displays each image consecutively.
Tapping an image brings up a
larger version. There are also some new yellow icons
at the top that let you rotate the image in 90
degree increments. Not bad at all!
The Audio section gives you access
to all the thousands of songs that you may be
storing on your Media Center PC. You also have
access to a number of Internet Radio channels here.
Finding the Artist or Album you
want to hear can be very difficult when you have so
much content.
Thankfully, the yellow magnifying
glass icon brings up a search dialog that you can
use to find what you’re looking for. In the search
results page, there’s also a play button so you can
play everything associated with search terms.
You actually get thumbnails of
album art. Very nice!
Tapping on a song shows more info
and album art.
The Web section gives you access
to Mapping directions, Finance, and Weather
information. These don’t really fit in with the
whole streaming from your Home Media Center thing.
They seem very out of place.
Orb also works great through a
regular PC web browser.
Orb can send it’s link directly to
your mobile phone.
Organizing the setup is a bit
easier from a desktop PC.
VIDEOS
Streaming Video over GPRS (Upstream 94kbs
Downstream 23kbs)
Streaming Video over Bluetooth (Upstream
94kbs Downstream 390kbs)
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Orb Networks Orb v1.00.0393
April
19,
2005
Review by:
Adam Z
Lein, Senior Editor
Jump
to: PAGE 1 |
PAGE 2
HELP SUPPORT
The
Orb Support site has plenty of information about
the Orb service and getting it working. There’s also
a
Support Forum for questions not found in their
knowledge base web pages.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Orb requires
a Windows XP or Windows XP Media Center Edition PC with a 2.4Ghz
processor, 512Mb RAM, 100Mb free disk space, and a broadband always-on
internet connection. For live TV, you’ll also need a TV tuner card
installed in the PC. See
“What I Need” on
the Orb website for a list of compatible TV Tuner cards. On the
client side, you need a mobile device with an internet connection, web
browser, and Windows Media Player or Real Player. The faster the
internet connection, the better.
BUGS AND WISHES
While Orb works surprisingly well with my Media
Center PC and my
imate JAM Pocket PC Phone even over GPRS, the
biggest problem is the design of the website. All of
the primary navigation buttons use images instead of
regular HTML text. This means that you have to
download over 10 times as much information than if
the site was designed with hypertext navigation.
That makes the site very slow and cumbersome to use
on mobile devices. Furthermore, the “play” button is
the last one to download, so you have to wait and
wait for all of the other graphics to download and
display before you can click on the one you want to
use. It actually takes longer to find the content
you want to see than it does to start streaming the
media to your Pocket PC. This problem is easy to
fix, by changing the site’s navigation design. The
primary links only need to be at the top on the
first page. More relevant tasks should be moved to
the top as the user drills down through their
content. Turning off images in Pocket Internet
Explorer will speed up the website interface
significantly.
Another problem with Orb is the fact that it’s not
accessible when a user is not logged into the Media
Center PC server. The software does not run at boot
up, only at log-in. Furthermore, the software loses
it’s connection to the web portal when your Media
Center goes into power saving Standby mode. So once
the PC goes to sleep you will no longer have access
to your media. Also, if you only have one TV Tuner
card in your Media Center, and you’re watching TV
remotely through Orb when another TV show is
scheduled to be recorded, the TV show will not be
recorded.
PURCHASING
Orb is a free service now! All you have to do is sign up
at
their website.
PROS
- Live TV
over the internet - Stream your entire music
collection over the internet - Watch TV that you’ve
recorded remotely - View all
the photos in your Media Center from your mobile
CONS
- Mobile web
site interface is slow and poorly designed for
mobile devices - Orb only starts up when a
user is logged into the Media Center - Orb stops
working if the Media Center PC is in suspend mode
and won’t wake up automatically
| Value |  |
| Ease of Use |  |
| Features | |
Overall |  |
OVERALL IMPRESSION
If you want to make your iPod-using
friends feel technologically inept and inadequate,
show them how you can watch live TV on your tiny
imate JAM pocket PC phone with a connection to
the Orb service. If that isn’t enough, show them how
you can also listen to half a terabyte of music,
browse through your entire photos library, and play
a variety of videos off your home Media Center.
Maybe they won’t notice that the streaming bitrate
is about 20kbs over your GPRS connection. The
service has a few bugs, and the My Orb portal is
slow, but still, this is an extremely advanced
service.
Originally published on Pocketnow on April 19, 2005.