Orb works with Wii, PS3, and now 360

Not to have the thunder completely stolen by the Apple TV, Orb Networks has announced compatibility for streaming media service with Wii, PS3, and now Xbox 360 console owners. The newly-added 360 support can use the built-in media capabilities of its Windows Media Center Extender, with just the Orb software on the PC end. PS3 and Wii setups stream from a Flash-embedded MyCast site. The Orb streamer only plays well with Vista and XP, and needs a 2.4GHz Pentium 4, AMD 3200+, or higher CPU, as well as Windows Media, Real, or Quicktime Players for the streaming. Content also ends up as Flash video, so that probably nixes any support for high definition, but if you're itching to do some streaming to your console across the house -- or across the globe -- and don't want to wait for or use Apple's solution, then Orb could be the best thing for you.

[Thanks, gibber9583]

[Ryan Smith @ Mar 22nd 2007 5:32PM]

I guess they didn't do much testing, because not only does the streaming not work on the 360. But there is no way to enter in your orb user name and password. I made a orb account using only numbers so I could enter it in with my remote keypad on the 360. It worked, but the streaming didn't.

[gibber9583 @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:43PM]

R. Smith, you do not need to enter a users pass on your 360. You need the user and pass to login to mycast. If Orb is online, you can connect to it via your 360, it just shows up as one of your computers ORB:nameofcomputerhere

It is a big buggy right now, yes, but i'm hoping it fixed in the future. Can stream divx without transcoding!

[scott @ Mar 30th 2007 12:10AM]

If you are going into orb through More Programs in the Media Center, you can press DVD Menu on your XBOX remote or Y on the joystick controller to bring up the xbox keyboard. Streaming works fine for me.

[monal @ Mar 22nd 2007 5:43PM]

worked fine on the Wii last week when I tried.......I will try it out on the 360 tonite

[Taz @ Mar 22nd 2007 5:52PM]

It's sad that we 360 owners have to resort to hacks and 3rd party software to provide a service which should be available out of the box because of their insistence on using their own proprietary audio/video formats and not supporting the basic stuff that even Xbox 1 can play (albeit with some homebrew software)

[Chris @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:09PM]

Works great on my Wii, even better with my Dell Axim.

[Mike @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:12PM]

Works extremely well on my Wii. Fast, clear, and great interface. If only Opera gave us a way to remove that annoying bar at the bottom on the 30th when the final is released!

[Jeff @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:20PM]

Vista/XP only?

pass.

[Cliff @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:29PM]

Orb sucks...

[Kendall Tawes @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:49PM]

As much as I have become an Apple fanboy of late (which my former self a MS fanboy would have kicked me quite hard in the nuts for back in 2001) I must say that currently I'm on the fense with the TV and think this streaming to my video game concole method would be a nice buffer between DVD's and full digitial goodness (mind you that while the DVD video is digital it still has a physical disk.) I might not buy an TV right now but as with the iPod I don't buy anything new (all my computers, iPods, and other electronics were cheap and used even my Macs thanks to cleaver use of ebay). So untill someone can hack a DVR into it I will just sit back and then get back up remembering I haven't put the DVD in the machine yet.

Oh and the itunes content needs to be of higher quality. 128 bitrate music is lame.

[Rick wilson @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:52PM]

I've been using orb for a while. I love it! I'm surprised they were able to work out this ability to play by M$ standards and work with x360!

Love it on Wii, PS3 ~ meh... good but full screen video sometimes is laggy, but thats just the PS3.

[Tammie @ Mar 22nd 2007 6:58PM]

I use TVersity to stream to my husband's 360. Works GREAT. I mostly use it to play photo slideshows on my TV with background music, but it does video as well.

[Shawn O @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:20PM]

I'm not sure I get what the point of this is? You can already stream HD video content to your XBox 360 without the need for something like Orb, or even MCE.

Is this just to get around the need to convert things to WMV? Personally I'd rather convert to WMV than have everything transcoded down to sub-SD Flash quality. What good is that divx video if it's being turned into pixel mush.

That's an area that the 360 is better than the Apple TV at this point, the fact that you can purchase HD content directly from your living room, instead of purchasing SD content from iTunes, from your computer, THEN having to wait for it to sync to your Apple TV.

[Kev50027 @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:25PM]

Orb is awesome, it totally alleviates the need for Apple TV.

[Shawn O @ Mar 22nd 2007 7:34PM]

I still don't get Apple TV. The *only* way it's any good is if you buy all your content from the iTunes Store. Other than that it's a high-priced and under-whelming.

As far as I can tell the 360 is better in every single way, minus the iTunes bit.

- 360 Core system is the exact same price, yet can do so much more: games, use it as an MCE extender, use it as DVD player, etc.

- 360 has Video Marketplace which has both SD *and* HD downloads, direct to the unit. No need to purchase on your computer THEN sync.

- 360 is better looking, at least it has some style, the Apple TV unit isn't even as sexy as a Mac Mini, it's just a silver weird lump.

- 360 can be used as an extender, so you can always add DVR functionality. I don't even see that as an option with Apple TV.

- 360 can actually adjust the volume! Seriously, having to have two remotes to watch TV, one for playback, one for volume, is highly disruptive.

I could *almost* see the use of an Apple TV if it was sub-$100, for those that couldn't afford a 360 or one of a dozen other video streaming devices, but they're pricing this thing for people with a lot of expendable dosh, and those people aren't going to be happy with SD quality on their HD sets.

[glenn @ Mar 22nd 2007 8:32PM]

How is this differnet from tversity? I use that and it works great for my 360.

[ColorGuy @ Mar 22nd 2007 9:11PM]

Shawn O

The 360 core is not in the same class as the apple TV. The core has no harddrive to hold content. This really is a comparison of the full 360 vs apple TV.

This is a hard since I really dislike Apple but the appleTV has advantages over the xbox360.

The appleTV is $299 the XBOX with a 20gb harddrive is $400
The apple TV holds twice as much content.

The iTunes store is biggest in music and currently has the most avaiable video content.

The Apple TV is designed from the ground up as a TV media center. The Xbox 360 is only designed to play games. The Apple interface is far easrier and more friendly for media only content.

The xbox360 has no dvr functionality. So that is a tie.

The itunes bit is big. so is the interface not being all hyper kiddie colored when I want to relax and watch some tv.

Eh I'm still not getting one

[alexhrose71 @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:56AM]

Wrong. You just don't get it...there is no need to store content on a console HDD when you already have a PC. You have a PC right ? With media center extenders the content stays on the PC but is streamed to the extender, in this case, a core or premium 360. No HDD required.

If you have media center or Vista on your PC you can also therefore watch, record and pause Live TV as well as downloadable content. With a premium 360 you can also download Hi and Lo def content right from the marketplace (and their are hundreds of movies and programs already).

In November IPTV is also launching for the 360, hi-def live TV over broadband, no cable co required.

[ColorGuy @ Mar 22nd 2007 9:13PM]

The other big missing feature from the xbox is HDMI.

[Jesse @ Mar 23rd 2007 1:59AM]

@ColorGuy:

Actually the 360 is a Windows Media Extender, so you can record your tv, watch all of your Windows Media or Zune content as well play games. Also, you can stream the content as custom soundtracks while you play. Additionally the 360 has a built in market place where you can download HD TV Shows and movies as well as classic arcade games. Anyhow, back to topic ORB in my opinion is not necessary on the 360 although it is awesome for the Wii!

[BobStuff @ Mar 23rd 2007 7:46AM]

@Jesse

Do you work for Microsoft?

[Jesse @ Mar 23rd 2007 11:28AM]

@BobStuff

lol, just stating the facts. Didn't want people to get confused by ColorGuy's comments. I am typing this on a MacBook pro if it helps:)

[getagrip15 @ Mar 23rd 2007 9:28AM]

I tried this with my Wii and it was very slow. I have a pretty fast computer with a pretty fast connection too. Wonder what the problem was. It did run and it did seem pretty cool. Just not usable for me because of the slow speed. Anyone esle have a problem with sluggishness?