Mobile Sage Access...Streaming?

[akenis]

Trying to find opinions on differnet ways to actually view my shows while on the road. I've seen a couple of options:

1. www.Orb.com - it runs a service on your sage box, and when you log in to the orb site it streams to you. Last week I played with this for about 1/2 hour, but don't think I ever got a clean install. The service kept locking up and CPU usage never came down. Anyone have luck with Orb?

2. http://www.slingmedia.com/ - a hardware solution that somehow integrates to your network and does the streaming.

3. Nielms webserver - in ver 1.6 he has links to the video files, but clicking them, tries to download the huge file. I guess you can copy the http://...url and paste it into videolan player. I just tried this and I think it worked...I got a bout 3 frames as I'm only connected on the back of my Treo PDA now. Then theres talk about him using the videolan plugin for ver 1.7 that will stream the mpeg straght to WM player...hopefully with just a click on the link in the webserver. Will this work over a standard hotel 80211.b network.....or

4. Sage Encoder - an add on that schedules shows to be encoded to either wmv or divx and generates html pages with links. I guess pages can be added to nielms webserver.

5. An official Sage web package that may be comming soon. Will it allow streming to my hotel room?

6. Plan ahead and burn a couple of shows to DVD. Guys that do this, do you make a dvd format, or just make a data DVD and copy the MPG files.

Thanks for any comments/suggestions on any of the above...

[steingra]

Originally Posted by akenis

Trying to find opinions on differnet ways to actually view my shows while on the road. I've seen a couple of options:
2. http://www.slingmedia.com/ - a hardware solution that somehow integrates to your network and does the streaming.

Originally Posted by akenis

6. Plan ahead and burn a couple of shows to DVD. Guys that do this, do you make a dvd format, or just make a data DVD and copy the MPG files.

If you have space on your laptop (assuming you take that on your trips), then you could just copy the mpeg files and watch them using power DVD or whatever player you have.

Slingmedia...I was looking at that also, as another fun experiment. You would need to set it up with a *video source*. And then you could stream over the internet. Its really only made for Live TV...so I dont think thats what you really wanted.

That is the main reason the guys invented it. And you will need another set top box back at home to feed it on the svideo input port/composite video input + the left and right audio connectors. Once you did that, then it has access to your content.

VIDEOLAN ...I am also evaluating that piece of software. It seems like an awesome FREE piece of software to use for playing back content. Also, if you spend time reading the help documentation you will see that it can stream video/mpegs files (and other formats too I am pretty sure) when you put it into a server or streaming mode. I havent dont it yet, but I know the capability is there. Just havent got that far yet.

And no matter what you have to have a decent internet connection at home to support this type of videostreaming. And also you will have to open up your firewall to allow access to the content/server/TCP/IP ports.

And you will have to possibly setup something like www.no-ip.com as a dynamic DNS service if you want to use a friendly name to type in for accessing your sling media server or videolan server over the internet (or just use your IP address).

[mkanet]

You really might want to take a look at ORB again. There isn't anything out there that does this better... or even close.

If you can't get orb to work, sound like there's something broken in your setup. If you have a corrupted ORB install, I would delete the ORB Networks registry keys, the ORB dir under Program Files, and the ORB dir under Documents and Settings/app data.

Orb isn't as resource intensive as I once thought. I have it running full time on my SageTV machine which I use to watch and record HD on.

[steingra]

Originally Posted by mkanet

You really might want to take a look at ORB again. There isn't anything out there that does this better... or even close.

ORB sounds interesting. Oh boy another toy!!!

Wouldnt ORB compete directly with sagetv if you had them both installed on the HTPC? I mean, ORB mentioned that it can talk to/control the PVR 150/250/350 and USB UIRT devices that sagetv is already using.

THANKS FOR THE LINK!

[akenis]

I got Orb set up and working ok. When I did the first install, I skipped the TV setup because I didn't want it to conflict with Sage's controll of my two tuners. Ended up with OrbIr.exe running at 100% CPU. I think that extension was trying to contoll a set top box. I went back and gave it my TV info and everything settled down. Used the option to set as service. So now the capability is there to use the tuner but I think the sageTV service would have to be shut down. Haven't had any problems since I haven't tried to tune via Orb.

No problem watching my saved shows on my 80211.b from a Hotel.

The Orb site talks about plugins for MCE that sence the MCE service and asks permission to take over the tuner. Maybe someone could do the same for Sage.

Also have Orb set to Direct Stream, ie bypassing Orb servers and connecting directly to the Orb client. Supposed to increase performance. If you're on you're own LAN everything stays on your LAN with really good performance.

[akenis]

Originally Posted by steingra

VIDEOLAN ...I am also evaluating that piece of software. It seems like an awesome FREE piece of software to use for playing back content. Also, if you spend time reading the help documentation you will see that it can stream video/mpegs files (and other formats too I am pretty sure) when you put it into a server or streaming mode. I havent dont it yet, but I know the capability is there. Just havent got that far yet..

Yea I got the Videolan HTTP server going to just look at it. It has remote control buttons to timshift which is cool. With Orb, you have to take a guess to click on the WMP time bar, and wait for it to buffer again. It'd take a lot of work to get the pages set up with your content and figure out the right parameters for different speed connections. Hopefully the Sage web server will figure this all out.

The other thing about ORB is it's speed check. It figures out what quality signal it can stream and does the transcoding on the fly. If you have one of those new phones or Windows PDA, you can even stream to your phone. Won't work with my Treo because there isn't a player that's compatible.

One other problem I had with my Orb set up. When clicking on my files nothing would happen. Finally figured out that the streaming extension...asx or something wasn't associated with WMP.

[Ryokurin]

Orb just acts like that depending on how much media it has to parse. I have about 80 gigs work of mp3s and wma's and initially it took a good 30 minutes for it to find it all. It still pegs out the cpu when new media is added. That tendancy is actually the reason why I have disabled it from running all the time. It seemed to cause sage to stutter for a few seconds while it added the new mpeg file to its database.

[mowensmd]

Orb gives me a "corrrect MPEG-2 codec not found" error in the video screen(from orb, not WMP) when it launches WMP. Orb support says change the codec...but to what? No workie with MPEG-2, downloaded again. Sage-TV codec is listed...? format. Still, error. Ideas on setup? Streaming audio and pics work fine.

[mkanet]

The latest ORB comes with a pretty good mpeg2 decoder already... dcscaler. There's an option to install the dscaler codec. Then you select it.

I have a weird issue with ORB in respect to codecs as well. I cannot change codecs period if I have Nvidia installed. It ALWAYS uses Nvidia regardless of which codec I choose. The only way I can get HDTV files to display the correct aspect ratio in orb, is for me to uninstall Nvidia and select something else.

PS: I have ORB run 24/7 and wouldnt have it any other way!

[akenis]

Originally Posted by mowensmd

Orb gives me a "corrrect MPEG-2 codec not found" error in the video screen(from orb, not WMP) when it launches WMP. Orb support says change the codec...but to what? No workie with MPEG-2, downloaded again. Sage-TV codec is listed...? format. Still, error. Ideas on setup? Streaming audio and pics work fine.

Is the error on your server or client?

Client error? Try a different client

Server? Right click on the green orb tray icon, select configure and advanced. It let's you pick the codec there. Default is Descaler.

[mowensmd]

It's server, and I have opened advanced settings and selected dscaler. I then downloaded and reinstalled dscaler, reselected in orb advanced settings but get same error message. Again, the error message appears after orb tries to stream the message (connects, buffering, playing...) and the error is not a pop-up window, but almost a video still in the WMP view box. (assumably from orb). How can I tell what codec it's actually doing, or other ideas to troubleshoot?

[mowensmd]

anyone?

[mkanet]

In order to find out what codecs are being used and related information, you need to check:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\OrbNetworks\Logs\MiTVStrclt.log

There's a good chance that log file will tell you what/where the problem is.

Can you post your log file here?

Originally Posted by mowensmd

It's server, and I have opened advanced settings and selected dscaler. I then downloaded and reinstalled dscaler, reselected in orb advanced settings but get same error message. Again, the error message appears after orb tries to stream the message (connects, buffering, playing...) and the error is not a pop-up window, but almost a video still in the WMP view box. (assumably from orb). How can I tell what codec it's actually doing, or other ideas to troubleshoot?

[falltime]

I too use Orb BUT am I correct that it wont work for Live TV if Sage is running as well. If I am wrong could someone walk me through how you got it to work - BTW I have a set top box connected by S-video

[mkanet]

SageTV grabs a hold of your capture hardware. Orb will not be able to control these devices if they are being used by SageTV.

In Theory, somebody could make a SageTV plug-in to cooperate with ORB

One thing to watch out for when running them both at the same time, is to make sure that ORBIR.exe doesnt get stuck at high CPU usage (competing for USB-UIRT device used by SageTV) when you start up ORB.

If you really want the LiveTV feature of ORB, you need to buy a dedicated TV tuner just for ORB. I only use ORB for pre-recorded material.

PS: The ONLY way I've been able to stream HDTV 16X9 videos and standard mpeg2 video with the right aspect ratios is to use the Dscaler video decoder ORB comes. with.

[lovingHDTV]

Looking at ORB, it says it will stream already recorded videos. But from what I read here I have to setup the tuner support for ORB to stream videos? I have no desire for ORB to even know about the tuners in the system, but instead just be able to stream video, pictures, and mp3 from defined directories.

Is this possible?

thanks,

[blade]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

Looking at ORB, it says it will stream already recorded videos. But from what I read here I have to setup the tuner support for ORB to stream videos? I have no desire for ORB to even know about the tuners in the system, but instead just be able to stream video, pictures, and mp3 from defined directories.

Is this possible?

thanks,

You don't have to setup the tuner for ORB to work.

[mkanet]

In the ORB setup, just uncheck "TV" support. I really wish somebody would write a SageTV plugin for ORB now that the API for ORB is available. Better integration is always nice.

[lovingHDTV]

Great I'll have to install this tonight so I can get streaming to work.

[lovingHDTV]

Just curious for those that have used Orb. What is their business model? Do they insert commercials between you files, popup adds?

thanks,