TVSquad

Monsoon Multimedia, makers of the Hava line of place-shifting set top boxes are taking a break from trying to one-up the Slingbox and trying to take on another big name in the placeshifting world: Orb. The difference is Orb gives away its product for free, which could make tough for Monsoon to grab any market share.

This week Monsoon announced HAVASoft, a video streaming, place and time shifting application for PCs with TV tuner cards. Users will be able to install a client on their PC and stream video to internet connected computers or Windows Mobile phones and PDAs. One thing HAVASoft users will be able to do that Orb users can't is broadcast their live or recorded TV streams to more than one user at a time.

Users will be able to pause, fast forward, rewind, and record live TV over a remote connection. And if you've got a wireless home network the software will let you use a TV tuner in one PC as a networked tuner for use by other Windows Media Center PCs in the house. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Support for Windows XP, Vista, and Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6
• Stream MPEG-2 video over a home network
• Stream MPEG-4 video over the internet

No word on pricing yet, but Monsoon Multimedia says the software will be available "in early 2008."

[via TiVo Lovers]

Place-shifting software maker Orb Networks announced it's signed up its 1 millionth registered user. We've been using Orb for years to stream video from our PC-based PVR across the web, but in case you're not familiar, here's how it works.

You install a client on your PC and it scans specified directories for audio, video, and photos. When you login to mycast.orb.com from any computer, PDA, or mobile phone, you can stream video from your home PC. You can also use Orb to watch live TV using your PC's TV tuner card. Just make sure that card's not scheduled to record something else, as we've found that Orb stop BeyondTV recordings in order to stream live TV.

While Sling Media gets all the attention (and rightfully so, since the Slingbox is easy to use with or without a PC), Orb is free and a handy addition to any home theater PC.

Along with a self-congratulatory press release marking the 1 million customer mark, Orb also released a couple interesting facts about what people have been streaming. For example, Pink Floyd, Linkin Park, and Metallica are the top three music artists streamed. Sportsl, local and national news, and Seinfeld, Mythbusters, and Scrubs have topped the TV streams.

[via Mobility Site]

Mike Garcen of Missing Remote has written up a detailed comparison of three programs that leverage your PC to let you watch live TV from any internet-connected PC.

Orb, WebGuide4 and SageTV Placeshifter are all programs that let you access your home computer to watch and record live TV over the internet. SageTV Placeshifter is designed to work with SageTV, and has an interface that looks just like the desktop application. WebGuide4 works with Windows Media Center, and Orb works with pretty much anything.

How often have you said to yourself, I'd really like a Slingbox, but wouldn't it be great if it was just a little bit cheaper and from an obscure company? Well, then there's Moonsoon Multimedia's Hava.

No, no, you say. Even cheaper and more obscure. Ah hah. Have you considered the Honestech My-IPTV? Of course not. You've never even heard of them. So there.

Anyway, rather than giving you a box to set down by your TV, Honestech's solution includes an external USB tuner and software for your computer. Install the tuner and software, and you can stream video to internet-connected devices including computers, Windows Mobile phones or PDAs. PVR functions are also available.

Prices start at $99. Of course, for less money than that, you could just pick up a cheap TV tuner, set up Media Portal or GB-PVR for free, and use Orb to stream your video over the net.

[via Engadget]

Orb has been a great utility for streaming audio, video, and pictures from your PC to pretty much any machine with a web browser. We've already told you about how you can use Orb to (sort of) turn your PS3 or Wii into a media extender.

But what about an Xbox 360? This week, Orb added support for that console as well. Sure, the 360 is already designed to be a media extender. But it's always nice to have choices, right?

With the PS3 and Wii, you have to use Orb's web interface. Xbox 360 users just have to make sure their console is connected tot heir LAN. Then all you do is go tot he media tab in your Xbox 360, select the media type you want to play (music, video, or photo), click "computer," and select the PC you want to stream content from.

[via EngadgetHD]

Apparently Orb went and snuck a really cool feature into version 2.0 without bothering to tell us about it. Orb generally lets you access videos, live TV, photos, audio, and other files from your computer through a web interface.

But Ian Dixon was snooping around his computer the other day and found a file called orb.mcl in his Orb directory. Hey, MCL files are Windows Media Center files! What happens when you click on it? Windows Media Center starts, and asks you to sign in with your Orb username and password.

Here's where it gets really interesting. If you're running an Orb server client on your home computer, but login using orb.mcl on a different computer, you can browse all of the shared files on your home computer using Windows Media Center's 10-foot interface. Pop on over to your buddies house to watch the big game that you recorded last night. Go visit grandma and show her your latest vacation photos for a change. This is all assuming your grandma and buddy have Windows Media Center and a broadband connection.

This is both a pretty low tech, and a pretty high tech hack. Sling Media is beta testing a new feature called Clip+Sling, which will let you record on your PC or mobile device a short video clip of whatever you're using your Slingbox to watch. Then you can share that clip with your friends, YouTube style.

That's all great, but what if you've got a friend in Germany who missed seeing a friend win an Oscar, you've got the ceremony recorded on your TiVo, and you've got no way to get the video to him? Sure, this sounds like a crazy hypothetical, but it's exactly the position Matt Haughey of PVRblog found himself in last night.