Media Streaming with Orb

OK, first things first - I hate configuring things. If I can't plug it in and use it, then forget it. I don't have the time or patience for it. So after I spent half a DAY trying to get TVersity to work a couple months back, I had low hopes for ORB, a new program which promises to serve all your media to your XBox and the go the extra step of taking media from the web and streaming it to your box.

the good - it works, like really well, even surprisingly well. All I did was tell the program where my files were, turned on my xbox, cleared out any previous computer connections on the system blade, and connected to the ORB media server on my PC and played. Videos (xvid videos nonetheless) streamed, pictures streamed, music streamed. It all worked. Oh, and it's free software. And it transcodes, which is a huge bonus for me because I store all my videos in ipod format so I can easily watch them on my train ride. Keeping a WMV copy of something and an MP4 copy of the same file is not a good solution for me, not to mention being a pain to maintain (remember how I hate configuring things).

the bad - the front end GUI is a little slow. If I configured it a bit I'm sure I could get it to run faster but it kinda chugs a bit when it's starting up. I would expect a web based program to be a bit zippier. Also, it took about 30 seconds for the video to start on my 360 (which I understand because the pc had to get a buffer going so it could transcode on the fly which it did reasonably well). When my wife hopped on the computer that I was using as the media server, I had to kick her off because it caused some rather bad framerate issues. She was only browsing the internet. (Her poignant comment was that she liked it better when I played games on my Xbox. Touche' dear, touche').  Also, the picture was very much pixelated, but a) ORB is streaming it over the web, and b) I'm running it over a (b) wireless network. (Heh, get it, "b"? No, see...it's funny because...oh screw it.)

I never tried streaming any of the web stuff to the 360 so I'm not exactly sure how well that works. I would imagine a delayed start and some breaks during heavy web traffic based on my experience with "Real" media and the like.

Overall, I have to say good product. I would like some quicker performance out of the GUI but all in all, very useful for 360 owners.