Orb Is Now Free!

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.orb.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.orb.com/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Orb Networks, Inc., a developer of streaming media software and services, today announced the company’s groundbreaking streaming media software, Orb Media, will now be FREE to all users. Orb’s software and service gives consumers the ability to spontaneously access their live TV, music, photos, videos, and other digital content located on their home PC from virtually any Internet-enabled device, from anywhere in the world, and now provides that service without adding any new monthly fees for new and current customers. Additionally, Orb has added a new Photo Sharing service to its solution allowing customers to share all of their selected photos with friends and family at any time."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20050330-Orb.gif" /><br /><br />Pocket PC Thoughts reader, <i>galt</i>, spotted a little "hurrah" for us Pocket PC users. The initial pay-as-you-go Orb service (which I <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36230">posted</a> on earlier in the year) is now free. Instead of relying on people paying for the service, a collection of advertisements will help keep it going. :)

[kaisersoze]

Hmmm... Nothing is free.. There is no such thing as a free lunch.. is it adware/spyware?

[bjornkeizers]

EDIT:

Works fine; a good time is being had by all!

[Darius Wey]

https://my.orb.com/orb/getOrb.jsp

bjornkeizers, according to their site, Orb will not work for those outside the US. A bit of a bummer, huh? :|

[DaleReeck]

I tried it on a PPC and it worked fine. You shouldn't have to open anything manually. If you click on the channel you want to view on the Orb web site in PIE, Media Player automatically opens up and starts playing it. It probably sends a small header file for Media Player to pick up on, but it should all be automatic. If it isn't, then sometihng may be messed up with your Media Player/PIE config. Maybe you installed another player program that is messing up the default configs for Media Player?

[bjornkeizers]

https://my.orb.com/orb/getOrb.jsp

bjornkeizers, according to their site, Orb will not work for those outside the US. A bit of a bummer, huh? :|

What they mean by that is that the TV listings are only available for the US - the software works just fine.

I also figured it out - I was in fact using Netfront at the time, not PIE! It actually works fine when I specifically used PIE. I'll edit my post above. Oh well.

[bcries]

What they mean by that is that the TV listings are only available for the US - the software works just fine.

I also figured it out - I was in fact using Netfront at the time, not PIE! It actually works fine when I specifically used PIE. I'll edit my post above. Oh well.

Hey, I'm Canadian and the TV listings worked for me. I simply signed for Orb last night with a fake zip code (in Canada we have 6-digit postal codes of alternating letters and numbers... funny the system of a barren tundra would allow for more possible combinations than that of the US!).

Then, while installing Orb, I was asked for my ZIP code again to set up TV listings. I simply entered my postal code (N2L6E5, no spaces) and the Orb search came up with options for various Canadian cable and satellite companies in my area, as well as plain-old antenna broadcast (poor students like me run an MCE box with bunny ears).

Let's be honest, though - we Canadians are quite used to making up fake ZIP codes, due to the overwhelming number of US websites that leave us no other choice ;)

[Darius Wey]

https://my.orb.com/orb/getOrb.jsp

bjornkeizers, according to their site, Orb will not work for those outside the US. A bit of a bummer, huh? :|

What they mean by that is that the TV listings are only available for the US - the software works just fine.

I also figured it out - I was in fact using Netfront at the time, not PIE! It actually works fine when I specifically used PIE. I'll edit my post above. Oh well.

I see. I thought you were just having a problem with everything. Period. :D

Glad to see it's all working now. :)

[bjornkeizers]

Oh don't you worry - I've got plenty of problems with various things, just nothing PPC related at the moment :D

[Tierran]

Won't connect for me :cry:

[OneAngryDwarf]

Now thats exciting... I tried out the tial myself and thought it was really awesome but working off a limited budget I couldn't warrant getting it (especially cuz I'm not w/ high speed access in most places and it doesn't work through the proxy I use on T-Mobile). Hopefully some of the things will be fixed in the future cuz at the moment I could play very very few of my vids through it (didn't seem to like my divx, xvid, or good compression mpegs). For free though I can't complain... Viva la ORB!

[galt]

My PC is pretty far below their required PC specs (2.4Ghz Intel Pentium IV processor or equivalent &amp; 512MB of RAM), it's a just 1.2 Ghz AMD w/256 RAM but I was able to use most of the functionality, although CPU useage was pretty much in the 90-100 percentile while streaming video. Music, pics, and their listed internet TV channels worked fine, I don't have a TV card for my PC so I couldn't test that, but some videos streamed from my PC worked pretty well, although the quality wasn't what it would be if I was playing them over my local wifi network or from a storage card. The higher quality video files didn't work very well (every few seconds it would stop and rebuffer) but video files formated using Pocket-DVD studio worked pretty darn well. Too bad we can't use Betaplayer with this, I'm just not a fan of Windows Media Player on the PPC.

It's nice to know that with this tool and Logmein.com I'll pretty much have access to most of the content on my home PC while I'm away from the house, as long as I can find a friendly wifi connection. To be honest I'm not sure I'd use it as a pay service, but it's really nice as a free service. I didn't notice any ads that supposedly support this free service, did anyone else notice any?

[Muntasser]

US only eh, I'm not diggin' that :(

[JPD6825]

Could someone please address the security implications for this? i.e. It is perfectly safe if you make sure X, Y, Z... Is it really close to No Risk?
Paranoia runs deep...

[bjornkeizers]

US only eh, I'm not diggin' that :(

Don't believe everything you read - just install it and sign up, and when it asks you for a zipcode fill in 12141 or something like that. That's what I did. The only downside is: if you live in another country, it won't have your local listings.

I'm in Holland, and it works just fine. The software doesn't care. *try it*