Filed under: Audio, Multimedia, Software, Video, iTunes, Music
Orb has landed for Intel Macs
If you are a sometime PC user you probably know about Orb, a multimedia sharing tool that allows you to access your media from anywhere you have an internet connection and a browser. Now, Orb has come to the Mac and it's got great possibilities -- but it's a mixed bag in terms of reliability.You can download Orb for free, and set up a no-cost account. The software will index your iPhoto libraries, as well as your iTunes library, both audio and video.
You can then log into your Orb account on any other computer, fire up a browser, and play your media files. Orb has also had an iPhone app that logs you in and gets your media as well. It's been available for a long time, but only would work with a PC-based host. Now your Mac is accessible too.
Orb still lacks a few features you can get on the PC version. One big one is it won't talk to a TV tuner, so you can't look at live video from home on another computer. I expect this will be coming in short order. You can share media with others from the Orb website. They will need a free account, but they can watch a movie or listen to music or view photos just as you do.
That's the good part. The reality is, the Mac app is pretty buggy. I downloaded it the first day Orb was available, and it crashed every time it started indexing. The Orb tech support was very good. They asked for my Orb logs, found the problem and fixed the indexing badness.
I had a few more issues in subsequent days, and those were all fixed. I asked if others were having problems, and the developers said only a few.
Orb has been up and running for a few days, and the app has crashed on my Mac a few times. It really feels like an early beta, and not something that is solid release quality software.
I bought the iPhone app [iTunes link] for US$9.99, and in general it worked pretty well. I was able to stream a ripped DVD back from my Mac on the 3G network, and it was watchable. Movies look better over a Wi-Fi network, but one won't always be around when you need it. It's curious that Apple allows this app to stream video; the Sling application, which does almost the same thing, was denied the ability to use 3G. There is another, less expensive [iTunes link] versions of the iPhone app that only allows music streaming. It sells for $0.99. There is also a free sampler version. [iTunes link]
I noticed a few other anomalies. When the app wants to re-index your content it opens iTunes and iPhoto. I'm not wild about programs opening and closing on their own. Sonos and SimplifyMedia seemed to have solved that problem by indexing the database for iTunes without having to re-open the app. I also could not access my media while the re-indexing was taking place, and that would be very bad if I was out somewhere and wanted to view something.
Orb is free, unless you want iPhone access, and it has great promise. It makes your media available anywhere you want it, and on any device you want to explore it on. [I've also covered SimplifyMedia, which does a similar job with music and photos.]
I suspect the software will need to go through a few more iterations to be really solid, but there's no reason you can't download the latest version and see how it works for you. Orb requires an Intel-based Mac with OS X version 10.5 or later.
I had a few more issues in subsequent days, and those were all fixed. I asked if others were having problems, and the developers said only a few.
Orb has been up and running for a few days, and the app has crashed on my Mac a few times. It really feels like an early beta, and not something that is solid release quality software.
I bought the iPhone app [iTunes link] for US$9.99, and in general it worked pretty well. I was able to stream a ripped DVD back from my Mac on the 3G network, and it was watchable. Movies look better over a Wi-Fi network, but one won't always be around when you need it. It's curious that Apple allows this app to stream video; the Sling application, which does almost the same thing, was denied the ability to use 3G. There is another, less expensive [iTunes link] versions of the iPhone app that only allows music streaming. It sells for $0.99. There is also a free sampler version. [iTunes link]
I noticed a few other anomalies. When the app wants to re-index your content it opens iTunes and iPhoto. I'm not wild about programs opening and closing on their own. Sonos and SimplifyMedia seemed to have solved that problem by indexing the database for iTunes without having to re-open the app. I also could not access my media while the re-indexing was taking place, and that would be very bad if I was out somewhere and wanted to view something.
Orb is free, unless you want iPhone access, and it has great promise. It makes your media available anywhere you want it, and on any device you want to explore it on. [I've also covered SimplifyMedia, which does a similar job with music and photos.]
I suspect the software will need to go through a few more iterations to be really solid, but there's no reason you can't download the latest version and see how it works for you. Orb requires an Intel-based Mac with OS X version 10.5 or later.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Martin said 1:43PM on 11-09-2009
Orb rules. One minor adjustment to your text though ...
"It's curious that Apple allows this app to stream video ..." So far they do. That could change tomorrow :)
Reply
Joey said 1:51PM on 11-09-2009
I've long since abandoned my Apple TVs in favor of Windows Media Center ( MCE 7 is simply amazing) and I've really been missing out on the ability to watch my media on my Mac. Anyone know if Orb can help here? DVRMS files or whatever the proprietary MS format is for Windows 7 is unplayable on the Mac and the steps needed to convert the shows aren't worth the hassle.
If I could fire up Orb and watch my Windows Media files on my Mac, I'd be a happy camper. Sadly the antiquated looking, flash ridden Orb website doesn't talk in specifics. Best I can tell it seems it simply converts video files into streams? Anyone have any experience with this setup?
Reply
BeyondtheTech said 2:09PM on 11-09-2009
As an old Orb user on my PC, I was happy to see that I could log in and download the new Mac version.
Unfortunately, it crashed once for no reason, which I restarted. But, then I tried the free Orb Live and all I got were 5 second snippets of 3 randomly chosen videos. It just kept skipping to the next video. I knew that the "3 randomly chosen videos" is part of the "free" version, but I'm not willing to spend $10 to find out if the full version is as buggy, or if something's wrong with my setup that I'm only getting 5 seconds of playback.
Is there something that will transcode any video to playback easily on both my iPhone and my Sony PlayStation 3? Orb seems that it might be the one to do it. Other applications such as Yazsoft Playback and Nullriver MediaLink only work for PS3/Xbox 360/UPnP devices... perhaps the iPhone should go the way of being a UPnP device?
Reply
Shawn said 2:10PM on 11-09-2009
What I can't seem to find is how to get it to be viewed as a Media Source from my DirecTV HDDVR. I can find people (windows, presumably) that get it to work, but no where tells me what I need to do. The one Enable Media Share option on the ORB client is not clickable.
I can watch videos streamed to my Wii, but really, the Wii is not for video. It was watchable, but clearly streamed and pixilated.
Anyone else have success?
Reply
C.Mac said 2:21PM on 11-09-2009
Sounds like a pretty serious security risk. So with this program you're giving the Orb servers constant access to your Mac's file systems? No thanks.
Reply
brian said 2:21PM on 11-09-2009
I had very similar results to @BeyondtheTech - Video playback for 2-3 seconds and it would skip to the next video. I have yet to get video playback to work on 3G. I either get a timeout error or nothing ever happens. Music, while slow, plays ok on 3G - faster over wifi.
Reply
numpty said 3:42PM on 11-09-2009
Hmm, bit of a bummer it's Intel-only... my home media server is a Powerbook.
Reply
nkatz said 4:17PM on 11-09-2009
I downloaded it and it's done nothing but crash on me. Every single time. The first time, it crashed when I went to set up my account but every time since then it just crashes on startup. Needless to say, I've abandoned it for now.
Oh, and I haven't heard a single squeak out of their tech support. Sent them the logs and all and....nothing.
Reply
pheh said 4:21PM on 11-09-2009
Air Video http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/air-video-watch-your-videos-anywhere/id306550020?mt=8 - For Teh Win. Seriously.
Reply
Stan-O said 5:26PM on 11-09-2009
Well, I've tried Orb and less than thrilled by it. If you want a decent streaming to your iPhone/IPT from Mac, try the ServeToMe/StreamToMe combo. They charge .99 or 1.99 for the iPhone app, the server for Mac is free and it's very elegant solution and videos look great on iPhone and do not ever skip and pausing is smart (rolls back 5 seconds when you resume) and you can seek within the video and it's just great.
Reply
r.brick said 10:42PM on 11-09-2009
You guys got further than I did. I normally run as an unprivileged user, and the app wouldn't even run. I left a message in their forums saying I uninstalled it, and would try again once they straighten this out. For now, it's not ready for prime time.
Reply
oshawapilot said 11:13PM on 11-09-2009
Was glad to see a Mac version, FINALLY.
Unfortunately it's useless. Same issues as many others - 3 or 4 seconds of video then it freezes or skips to the next video, and now the server app just crashes repeatedly.
There's no way in hell I'm going to spend $10 for the full iPhone app only to discover it's no better.
Reply