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Streaming MP3s to iPod Touch with Orb

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Orb for many years. Basically, Orb allows you to stream media off your PC over the Internet to other PCs or mobile devices. It uses the server/client model where you run the server software on your PC with the media (music, video, and photos) and the client can be a web page or iPhone app.

It’s free to use and you’ll only need to shell out money if you want the iPhone app which costs $10. (Note that there is a freebie version you can use to try it out.) If you just use the a web browser to access, it’s free.

It always *kinda* worked for me, but the one problem that always made me turn in off was that it would often grab 100% of my CPU for seemingly no reason. For years, the Orb developers seem to totally disregard this showstopping bug until now. I noticed that one of the recent builds mentioned CPU usage in the change log, so I decided to install the latest version and try it for Nth time, but this time I’m happy I did.

I’m really using this for MP3s, but I checked out a few videos and they seemed to work fine as did the photos. It still seems to have some issues with not updating playlists, but so far no CPU hogging, so I’m very happy with it and I did buy the iPhone app as well.

It’s pretty simple to install and its only gets semi-complicated if you want to stream outside your home. To do that you’ll need your external IP address and know how to open ports on your router.

I had been using Logitech’s Squeezebox, but it’s limitation is that it requires a secondary player, either hardware or software. That set up just doesn’t really work on an iPod Touch or iPhone. It’s ok in a PC environment, although things can easily get out of sync.

I’ll be putting it through it’s paces over the next few weeks and will report back if I find anything worth mentioning.

February 15, 2010 Posted by spice3d | Movies and TV, Music | , , | No Comments Yet

No AT&T U-Verse for me. Staying with Time Warner Cable…for now

I nearly pulled the trigger to switch my TV and Internet to AT&T U-Verse, but after some research I found some show stoppers. Let’s start off with why I was even considering the switch. Two things really. Much faster Internet: 24 down and 2 up (was to be rolled out in a few months) and better features on DVR, including more storage. The show-sharing capabilities of the “Total House” feature seemed pretty cool too.

So why did I decide to stay? The biggest reason is that U-Verse limits the *entire* house to a maximum of only *two* HD streams, not matter how many boxes you have. Yup, you read that right. It’s a house limitation, not a box limitation. The fine print says, “Four channels can be recorded to the DVR or viewed simultaneously: up to two can be HD.” The way they word it, it almost seems like a good thing! ;-) Anyways, that is lame. I’ve got two dual-tuner HD DVRs now. I can be watching an HD football game and recording another HD football game on my TV, and Jac can be watching an HD channel on the other TV. Can’t do that with U-Verse. In fact, she could also be recording another HD show. And this can happen *every* Sunday during football season =), so it’s not a remote possibility.

The other issue may or may not be a problem. From what I read only one DVR actually records and the others can control or playback content on that DVR. So, some people have reported that you can only pause live TV on the TV with the DVR. According to the sales guy, our area will be getting only DVRs so each unit actually records. We shall see, since my neighbor is getting the service. In any event, although each may be a DVR, the entire house is still limited to 2 HD streams max. It has got to be a bandwidth issue.

In the future, they may increase the HD cap and I’ll revisit at that time. Until then, Time Warner still has my business, for better or worse. I am hoping, however, that this competition will force them to improve the DVR features, price, Internet speed, channels, etc. Competition is good!

FYI I’m still sticking with ViaTalk for my land line. You just can’t beat this service!

October 3, 2009 Posted by spice3d | Hardware, Internet, Movies and TV | | No Comments Yet