04.16.07
Orb MyCasting Service for Nokia N800 Internet Tablet
Via Nokia Press Release…
Orb’s intuitive solution simply streams a person’s own content from their home PC using the Web browser and media player of the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet thus creating a “personal media portal” from which users instantly access and enjoy home photos, videos, music, and even TV, from anywhere, anytime. With MyCasting, consumers can also remotely record TV programs using Orb’s Digital Video Recorder (DVR) function and then play back those recorded programs on the Nokia N800.“The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet was developed to make it easy for people to access their favorite internet sites, content, and entertainment from the couch, airport or coffee shop- anywhere there is WiFi. Orb’s MyCasting is an excellent use of the device making it a jukebox of personal media,” said Ari Virtanen, vice president, Convergence Products, Multimedia, Nokia.
“Nokia offers a quality mobile web experience for users with the rich functionality being introduced in the N800 Internet Tablet,’ said Joe Costello, Chairman and CEO of Orb Networks. “When Orb unlocks that personal digital content on the home PC, the N800 becomes the one connected device to enjoy it all whenever and wherever you want.The combination offers a new level of media freedom and control for the customer.”
The MyCasting service which will be demoed on the Nokia N800 at Nokia’s booth (# 402) at Web 2.0 Expo this week is free of charge and is immediately available for download from www.orb.com/n800 as well as from the Tableteer site, which can be accessed via the Nokia N800. There’s no need to download additional software for the N800. Using the built in media player and browser, Orb works instantly.
I tried this today (of course) and had some issues. I don’t have a PC (it’s PC only) here, so Parallels it is and that’s most likely my issue, because I was unable to stream any content on my LAN. I’ll give this another try later on courtesy of Ricky’s collection… Orb lets you share with friends.
I also had some issues initially getting past the security prompt on the http://my.orb.com. I had to clear about 5 accept the cert warnings and then another one as the page refreshed (for good measure perhaps) only to find that the process failed. I tried once again (per Ricky’s advice) and it did load, but I was not able to get anything to play.
I will say this… While this is potentially a cool application, I think the Orb UI requires far too many clicks to just play a song or a video — especially when you are told the media format you’ve selected is not compatible. Orb can be setup as a UPnP server as well as a web streamer so on your LAN, you can choose to run either Canola or the MediaStreamer application which may work better. If someone has success with this, please let me know!
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vimcat said,
April 16, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I just upgraded my orb software to the nokia version and it works really well for me. I’m on Windows XP SP2. I logged onto mycast.orb.com and it immediately took me to the nokia optimized site. I didn’t see any cert warnings. Once I chose an mp3 to play, the nokia media player was launched. Sadly, I don’t have any videos to try yet.
David Pitkin said,
April 16, 2007 at 4:54 pm
This is great news. I was able to play mp3’s both on my N800 and N80. Video on the other hand did not work. I have a fair bit of divx/xvid on my network and they all failed with a “invalid resolution” on my N800. There is a nice video and stream test site and only the real player demo urls worked on the N800. It was a similar problem for both upnp as well as through the mycast web site.
Brendan said,
April 17, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Similar experience here:
I’ve been able to stream my home music collection through Orb to my N800 while i’m out at a coffee shop with wifi, it’s pretty impressive. Works very well. The only problem i had was not being able to access some DRM protected files purchased from iTunes.
as for video, i have a bunch of .avi movies taken with my digital camera stored on my home PC that for whatever reason do not play at all through Orb. I have been able to get YouTube videos to play through Orb, but have buffering problems that lead to the video (and Orb) freezing up most times. You really need to play with the speed settings to get smooth playback.
Pieter said,
May 9, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I have I have been using it for about two weeks and
its ptetty amazing. Streaming from my pc
over my wlan is great - finally listening to my
music again. Streaming of movies works
well for mpeg1 ie vcd format but thats about
800meg per movie. Streaming of n800
optimised video would be great if i could get
it going. Use the nokia MEDIA STREAMER app on your wlan. Streaming via the browser remotely is not so good; cant get anything but pictures streamed and as it is brokered via the orb site its slow - from South Africa anyway.anyway.anyway.been using it for about two weeks and its ptetty amazing. Streaming from my pc over my wlan is great - finally listening to my music again. Streaming of movies works well for mpeg1 ie vcd format but thats about 800meg per movie. Streaming of n800 optimised video would be great if i could get it going. Use the nokia