Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Orb rocks
Disclaimer: Although I really hate using the term "rocks" as I did in the title of this post, I couldn't come up with anything that was more fitting... now that I read this, I am thinking that "rocks" is actually pretty cool compared to using a disclaimer to open a blog post. Anyway...
Recently, I reinstalled Orb which basically turns your Media Center PC into a Slingbox. That is an oversimplification because Orb has so many more features (and because Orb is free and Slingbox is $200+), but you get the idea. And just to be fair, Orb is really only free if you have a Media Center PC already.
So I was recording HD versions of shows like "24" and "Lost" and trying to stream them to a remote PC (at my office). The problem was that only about 1/4 of the screen was coming through when viewing HD files from my PC at work.
After checking their support forum, I found that there were others experiencing this issue and it was to be addressed in the next release.
Disclaimer #2: This is where Orb really starts to "rock"
This past weekend, I e-mailed Orb and asked if I could get the beta release of their next version so I could test out whether or not the "upper left quadrant" issue was fixed. To my surprise, they said "yes" and sent me a link to download it.
After the quick install, everything works great. I can now stream HD files to a remote machine and get the full 16:9 image. Sweet! Thanks, Orb.
Disclaimer: Although I really hate using the term "rocks" as I did in the title of this post, I couldn't come up with anything that was more fitting... now that I read this, I am thinking that "rocks" is actually pretty cool compared to using a disclaimer to open a blog post. Anyway...
Recently, I reinstalled Orb which basically turns your Media Center PC into a Slingbox. That is an oversimplification because Orb has so many more features (and because Orb is free and Slingbox is $200+), but you get the idea. And just to be fair, Orb is really only free if you have a Media Center PC already.
So I was recording HD versions of shows like "24" and "Lost" and trying to stream them to a remote PC (at my office). The problem was that only about 1/4 of the screen was coming through when viewing HD files from my PC at work.
After checking their support forum, I found that there were others experiencing this issue and it was to be addressed in the next release.
Disclaimer #2: This is where Orb really starts to "rock"
This past weekend, I e-mailed Orb and asked if I could get the beta release of their next version so I could test out whether or not the "upper left quadrant" issue was fixed. To my surprise, they said "yes" and sent me a link to download it.
After the quick install, everything works great. I can now stream HD files to a remote machine and get the full 16:9 image. Sweet! Thanks, Orb.
¶ 7:28 AM 
About Shawn Morton
Married father of 4, social media specialist, consumer electronics enthusiast, hair metal aficionado.
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Given the data transfer rates even on superfast broadband, I don't mind getting a lower quality signal for placeshifting, but it's hard for Slingbox to be relevant when everything is already recorded in HDTV. Considering that Slingbox and Orb are both high end early adopter products, you would think that support for HDTV would be pretty important. Orb won't make me go out and buy a media center, but it does sound like they are becoming the premium placeshifting service to use despite the discount price.