Orb 2.0, Part 2

To pickup from last December, I've been using Orb regularly to to view TV from the DVR setup I have at home in the office.  The DVR system consist of a Hauppauge USB 2 Tuner (with the hardware mpeg2 encoder) and I'm using Snapstream's Beyond TV, Vers. 4.5.  This combination makes for a heck of dvr setup which is better than the Charter Cable DVR we have in our master bedroom.  I will discuss the DVR at a later date.

The broadband connection I have from Charter is about 6 mbits down and 384 kbits up.  The upload number is the important figure.  The actual upload speed I usually get is about 250 kbits/sec.  The end result is  the video appears at 320x240 pixels and the video stream runs at 210 Kbits/sec.

This makes for acceptable viewing quality, though there are a number compression artifacts present.  However given the choice between pixelated video or no game, I'll take the the video.

The audio quality is respectable;  Especially when I can stream the mp3 library I started encoding back about 3 month ago.  I've encoded my mp3s at 256 Kbits/sec.  The audio stream I get is about 192 ktbits,

The best quality I've managed to get is uploading from my work server at about 9 mbits/sec.  This translates to a 1 mbit stream at 640 x 480.  Nice, but who can afford the bandwidth?

I haven't tried the Share feature yet or being to access my documents yet.  With being said, I will tell you if you it does work as advertised.  The software is free and there isn't any charge for accessing the Orb system (yet).  I'd say give it test drive and see what you think.

Please leave me any questions and comments on this or anything that suits your fancy.

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