digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About
See the original image at hothardware.com

Orb For Mac Streams iTunes Content To Any Device (For Free)

hothardware.com — You may not realize it at first glance, but this software release is probably one of the year's biggest for the Mac. We know, Snow Leopard was cool, but this is just fantastic.

Who dugg this? Made popular 13 days ago

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

57 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • arthursk, on 11/08/2009, -0/+28even to my toaster?
  • ElAmo, on 11/08/2009, -0/+14so this will stream to my lg cell phone for free?

    you said any device, so don't disappoint me
  • peestandingup, on 11/08/2009, -1/+10FTA: "Unfortunately, this program requires OS X 10.5 or 10.6, so those with older non-Intel Macs are out of luck."

    10.5 runs on PowerPC Macs, dummy.
  • hroo772, on 11/08/2009, -2/+9If you only wanna stream music to your device, Simplify Media does a much better job of handling that then Orb. I'm not paid to say this, I just use both and know from my own experience.
  • SPECOPS, on 11/08/2009, -0/+7You can't play DRM protected iTunes rental movies or TV shows with Air Video, Orb can, also Orb is free, Air Video is not. Air video doesn't stream your music content (DRM or not), Orb does. Also Air Video crashes a lot. The only advantage to Air Video is it will on the fly convert mkv video files (and a host of others).
  • inactive, on 11/08/2009, -2/+8Stream live TV to your Apple and it is completely free? Yes Please.
  • Capta1nA, on 11/08/2009, -1/+7Except for PPC macs :(

    /ancient computer
  • Shitokki, on 11/08/2009, -0/+4Yeah. No *****. Bring it.
  • dNitza, on 11/08/2009, -0/+4no only to your toasterbookPRO
  • inactive, on 11/08/2009, -0/+3It's still the norm to write universal app's. What happened here? Or was that a typo, because 10.5 is 100% PPC compatible. Not going to look it up either, because I could care less about the product. Also: "and best of all, you won't even need a credit card number to buy it". Software that you HAVE to buy with a credit card isn't worth touching.
  • SpookyET, on 11/08/2009, -0/+3Simplify Media is buggy as hell and does not support video. There are missing songs, missing metadata, or just shows file names. Sometimes, it takes forever to load a list. It's very erratic.

    My SimplifyMedia ID is SpookyET if you want to add me.

    The best option is to use iTunes Home Sharing by tricking it to work over the Internet using Wide Area Bonjour. You need a DNS server that supports DNS Service Discovery.

    Global Hostname ( http://www.globalhostname.com/ ) is a beta service that does that. I wish I had an account, but don't. It would be cool if OpenDNS implements it. I don't know of another service for Wide Area Bonjour. If you find one, reply and link here.
  • supersonicjim, on 11/08/2009, -0/+2ANY device in the world!
  • givemesnow, on 11/08/2009, -4/+6uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh STFU
  • ineversleep, on 11/09/2009, -0/+2Nope, we've been using it too. Now it supports our preferred operating system.
  • RobotBuddha, on 11/08/2009, -0/+2Agreed on simplify media being buggy as hell. At least streaming from either my mac or linux box to the iphone. I bought their first one for the iphone, and it hardly worked. Second one was supposed to be better, but I'd say it only actually gets to my music 1 time out of 10. Not to mention that it takes forever to refresh changes.

    Can't say orb's any better, but I can say that I'm really tired of simplify.
  • theuniversal, on 11/09/2009, -0/+2Buried as inaccurate, this IS NOT a streaming solution "to any device". For example, from Orb's support on the PS3:

    1. Connect your PS3 to your TV.
    2. On the PS3, go to the Internet Browser option from the main menu.
    3. Type mycast.orb.com in the address bar of your PS3 Browser, and enter your Orb login and password.
    4. You’re done! Select the media from your PC you want to stream on the big screen via your PS3. Be sure to leave the PC turned on in order to access the photos,music and other media.

    In other words, open up the Orb website on the PS3 browser and listen to your music through our website. Sorry, but that's not streaming. To make it worse, the Orb website is a design and usability disaster.
  • AmusedToDeath, on 11/08/2009, -0/+2You should consider yourself lucky you can even make phone calls with that thing.
  • dawnraid101, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1MyTunesRSS, that used to work pretty well, but this is amazing.
  • jv2k, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1Doesn't the iphone have pandora or something equivalent?

    Want to stream music to your phone? Just use the phone's own app.
  • jv2k, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1Fanboy for bringing up the fact that orb works on almost anything?

    Honestly I'm surprised the iphone couldn't do this already.
  • Tooch07, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1I've been trying the beta Orb for mac releases as well as this finished version. For computer to computer streaming it's ok, but on my cell phone (LG enV Touch) it's horrendous; movies rarely load. I use the Windows version in Parallels and that works wonderfully, although I can't stream my iSight from Windows. I was actually surprised to see this 'complete' version, as the beta developing looked like it was at a standstill (if you were reading the Orb for Mac forums).
  • TrouserJazz, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1Dugg for reviewing your previous comment
  • jv2k, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1Why bother streaming?
    It's easier to just plug in a flash drive and transfer the movie. Xbox supports xvid which is the more common pirate video codec.
  • RobotBuddha, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1I just wish someone would figure out something along the likes of playon, that can run on a mac, and be accessed from the iphone. Simply to get hulu.
  • ih8apple, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1Can someone explain the pros and cons of this vs. simplify media?
  • Tweaks, on 11/08/2009, -2/+3Does not even compete with Air Video in iTunes.

    http://www.inmethod.com

    I can play virtually anything on my iPhone with Air Video.


    Video Streaming
    Air Video can stream videos in almost any format to your iPhone and iPod touch. You don't need to copy your videos to the device just to watch them.

    Live Conversion
    If the videos in your collection are not in format supported by iPhone, Air Video will convert them on fly*. You don't need to wait until the entire video is converted. You can start watching it almost immediately!
  • ElAmo, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1wait, what??? how do you watch movies off of a flash drive?

    I have tried multiple times but have never been able to...
  • sadic, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1tx for the heads up, just the info i was looking
  • eljitto, on 11/10/2009, -0/+1do you know what sarcasm/satire is?
  • SPECOPS, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1Pandora is not streaming your own video/music library - its more or less choose a song and it picks songs it thinks you're interested in (e.g. Genius lists).
  • theuniversal, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1A much better solution for streaming IMO is Playback 1.2:
    http://yazsoft.com/products/playback/downloads/

    The interface is is very simple and very maclike. Install, select your media and your client device, and your done. No nonsense about opening up user accounts or playing your media back via a website. Claims to work for PS3, Xbox 360, or other UPnP compatible device, but I can only vouch for streaming to a PS3, which works perfectly. It's not free, but it's only $15. Free 7 day trial.

    No I don't work for Playback. But I've been looking for this kind of product for a long time so was really happy to find it. Paid for Nullriver more than a year ago, but my media files showed up on the PS3 as empty unplayable files so it was useless, and Nullriver support didn't help solve the problem.
  • ineversleep, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1Wrong topic.
  • mungabba, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1I have that phone in my car. I use it for emergencies, only cost me £10 and the battery life is immense.
  • MWeather, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1Comparing Pandora to Genius Lists is an insult to Pandora.
  • danrien, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1im going to digg your previous comment coz im a sucker for reverse psychology.
  • bobrobon, on 11/08/2009, -0/+1True, and I usually do that. However, most of the movies I have are 720p or 1080p which are .mkv files which xbox does not support.
  • schlongmeister, on 11/11/2009, -0/+1Frakkin' toasters
  • ineversleep, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1What?
  • jv2k, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1I didn't think Orb streamed in HD. My computer's too weak to run anything higher than standard resolutions.
  • BlueStarr, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1I know right. What the hell was I talking about. ha
  • eljitto, on 11/10/2009, -0/+1genius is terrible.

    I have had Nine Inch Nails and (poppy) weezer songs come on the same genius playlist
  • bobrobon, on 11/08/2009, -3/+3After reviewing my previous comment, I sound like a fanboy. Digg me down please.
  • lennynumberone, on 11/08/2009, -2/+2Yeah, it is. Ancient. I have two of them.
  • sotose, on 11/11/2009, -0/+0God has a plan for you,Gaius.
  • aquapete, on 11/08/2009, -2/+2i see what you're trying to do there.
  • BlueStarr, on 11/09/2009, -1/+1I haven't hear the yelp from a windows user about the face that there are no apps for OSX/Mac in a some time.

    Anyone... anyone? Ballmer? meh-haha
  • njcoolguy, on 11/09/2009, -0/+0http://orb.com/en/orblive
  • supersonicjim, on 11/08/2009, -1/+1This is my actual phone, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Motofone_F3 I hope this works for me too.
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 59 of 59 discussions

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.