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I've already moderated so I'll have to post anonymously, but I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with the Score:5 responses I read. Nothing inexpensive, everything was either pre-built or over the top.

Home surveillance is, well, sort of a hobby of mine. Way back in 2007 I was sending home surveillance video at 5fps to my Motorola Q smartphone through a slow EDGE connection.

Cheap route: old PCs and webcams. Any high-end P4 or Pentium D PC is more than enough to record HQ video and stream it anywhere. I picked up a Dell Pentium D PC on ebay for $60 shipped, and bought a 17" LCD on craigslist for $30. Webcam is a Logitech c300. They're cheap, less than $20 shipped on ebay, I even bought a few at $10 shipped, and can record at up to 1280x1024, which is plenty for HD 720p video of 1280x720. Also has a built-in mic, which is useful if your surveillance software supports audio.

So for ~$100 you now have an entire PC with 17" LCD that records and streams video over the network or internet. Won't find that at Costco for $100. And you can buy these and place them all over the house. Power usage is higher than a wireless IP camera, but considering price is almost the same and the versatility of a PC & webcam combo, I'd go this route.

Lots of software available. After trying everything I've narrowed it down to and iSpy. Both have their pluses and minuses and both are free to try so I'd recommend trying them both to see which you like.

Orb is what I used to stream USB webcam video to my cellphone many years ago but there's probably many other options available now.

You can stream from your computer.

But will it stream x264 and/or xvid from the computer? That's the big question for me. The original AppleTV didn't, only Quicktime and MP4 IIRC.

Transcoding is your friend. Streaming transcoding is your close friend.

Disclaimer: I've never tried either program, I just did a quick google search. Or maybe TVersity or Orb will support the AppleTV.

http://www.orb.com/wii/

Stream only so quality is not as good as playing locally like XBMC.

The question is, what qualifies as an online system. I can set up a server on my computer at home, and access my music that way. It's still an online system. Systems like orb even help you do this.

While Christmas shopping, I saw some software (called Movies on Wii as I remember, I was at Toys R Us) that converted files for playback from an SD card. While searching for that online, I found this software - http://www.riverfold.com/software/wiitransfer/ - it uses a Mac as the server, and the Wii as the client. (Or an SD card.) There is also Orb for the PC - http://www.orb.com/orb/, and Wii Video 9 http://www.redkawa.com/videoconverters/wiivideo9/. Those are both free, I think. I've not used any of it, and so I can't make any informed suggestions.

I just copy my home iTunes folder to a notebook drive in a USB enclosure, and take it to work.

Carrying disks?!? I just use Media Center to stream my audio and video over the internet from my server to whatever clients I like. I've used Media Center because of its single-click client-specific transcoding and its great tagging/smartlists. However, of late, I've been increasingly using VLC and Orb to stream more media to my phone. Anyway, the point is, carrying a physical disk is a postmodern sneakernet that should be left in the dustbin of history as soon as possible.

Stream music to your iPhone. Open-source, no hacking required

You know you can do this really easily with any Windows, Palm, or Symbian phone using VLC, right? Some people use web pages for control whereas I prefer to VNC in. Or if you want an even more turnkey approach, Orb is all set up and ready to go. I think Orb probably even works with iphones, as long as you have the right codecs loaded on your phone. It browses your local disk media and publishes them on ready-to-go web pages. It even indexes tags.

I was using Orb to stream tv and various streams to my Q (Verizon) from my home computer and it worked okay. It was not the best quality but it did work good for a zero cost streaming solution. I got rid of the Q for other reasons.

I just discovered Red Kawa. Which has a combination video/music/whatever server that you can access via the Wii Opera Browser. They also have video converter that converts the videos to flash (flv) so you can watch them in the browser. The video quality isn't that great, but it gets the job done. There's also converters for motion jpeg which I imagine would allow you to play videos from the SD slot, although I haven't had the time to try this out yet. I've tried orb which is another app that does the same thing, but goes through some third party server to view the media lists (I think the content is still direct stream). But I found that converting on the fly was too slow and the video produced was of much lower quality. Anyway, I also read that the Wii is getting a USB Mass Storage Driver. So if that's true, then I think that the media capabilities will be limitless. All it needs after that is H.264 support.

with sites like Orb networks, you can already watch live TV at high FPS on your mobile phone. You can also already display your phone's view to any computer with remote display programs; it's just a matter of considering your computer as your TV, which many of us already do.

Check out this software -> http://www.orb.com/gamers/xbox.htm/

I haven't tried streaming with my 360 nor have UI got the latest firmware - I'm hoping to hack it. However a friend who is up to date claims that this makes his 360 a damned good computer for a home theater. I personally want unsigned code and XBMC on the 360 but that looks to be awful far away right now....

So, for $15, I get to stream amateur videos to my cell phone?

How about, instead, I stream my own videos to myself using Orb and along with that, I can hit some online TV broadcasts, some internet radio, and prolly my mp3 collection (haven't tried that yet). And oh yea, one last thing: it's $0.

But yea, this Verizon/Youtube thing is cool too.

All I can say is: use Orb.

The only disadvantage is that you need a XP machine at home. But then, you can stream all your music that you already have, no need to buy it again. And it's not just music, you can also stream video, tv, photo, .... And on any device, not just your Cingular phone. And it's really free, no monthly fees or things like that.

No way I'm going to pay Cingular for something so limited!

If you have tried data on Cingular without an unlimited plan, you know how un-free this could be. Personally, this is what I've stacked up to solve this problem.

Cingular 2125 Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone.
$20/month for unlimited data.
Orb at home on my media machine.
Shure i2c-t headset for listening to audio and taking calls.

Then you just stream the data to yourself. Sure, it's harder to actually buy a track, but I only have 256MB of memory on my phone. I'm not going to fill that up with downloaded music.

That AIW is also hampered in other Windows applications as well, like Orb. Lesson learned. Next time I will buy a plain old supported almost with everything Hauppauge for a tuner and a seperate video card. The AIW I have (AIW 9600XT) was the same exact price as a regular 9600XT card at the time so I guess I did not really loose out on anything though.

this great program has been doing this for a while, but i guess if you just HAVE to do it off of mythTV platform, this is a good tool also, though i doubt if it's as powerful and great ease of use as the orb tool.

http://www.orb.com/

i can't believe no one's said that yet

seriously, though, isn't it likely that the answer to the once-nauseatingly-ubiquitous ("bingo!" for those of you playing buzzword-bingo as you read down the page) question about What Will Be The Digital Hub of your networked life? is: the PC?

in this week of PS3 price-shock, it seems even more ridiculous than it once did to think that the PS() woulda/coulda/shoulda been the Hub

i'm biased, definitely, since i work at http://www.orb.com/ but still i think the idea that some other device is going to become the hub, when the PC has all this processing power, huge footprint, strong extendability, is comic - and there are lots of folks making the PC something more in the background than it ever was before

now if only apple would license its OS...

I do all that with Orb... plus I can skip the ads... and I can do that with internet TV... and Internet radios... and my own videos... and my music collection.....hmm, why do I care about that article again?

Umm yeah, your talking about purcahsing music via the cell phone stores. I'm not. I could go into it but if your actually interested check out http://www.orb.com/ This is streaming my own music from my net connected computer at home, again just check out Orb for the details. The unlimited data plan from sprint is an additional $15 a month, but I can also use the phone as a Bluetooth modem, for my laptop, or pda.

I can stream my entire music collection (regardless of format) in stereo to my samsung a900 phone from Orb ( http://www.orb.com/ ) running on my home computer, from anywhere I get sprint coverage ( which is more places than I ever go ) limited only by the size of my hard drive and no syncing or even thinking about it. So without some drastic changes the next generation of phones (or some kind of wireless net connected music playing device) should kill the ipod. (I said should)

If I'm expecting emails from my bank, I'll be putting them on my safelist anyway!

And I can tell you that everyday we receive dozens of automated emails asking us to click a link to verify that we are human beings and not a spam bot.
So good for you if you manually manage your safelist, but other people don't bother with it.

That said, the idea of certified email to fight spam to some level is not a bad idea, afterall, that what other people have been trying to do and they were welcomed (spf). However, I'm not too hot on them charging for it because those who can't afford to pay may become second class citizens.

I've been using this for a whole week..(it was given to sprint users for Vision Phones from a link they provided on 1/13)

http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?t= 87456&highlight=opera+mini

O-Mini seems to pass all comm through thier servers in real time. It slices most full window pages into 30 slices. It does the same on large, wider-then-tall images.

Actually I love it so far.. I just hope they keep it free...

Also check out Google Maps for mobile:
http://www.google.com/glm/index.html

And Orb (stream MUCHO from home computer):
http://www.orb.com/what_is_orb/

Orb streamign software They have/offer a free streaming server/client thingie (for both video and audio)... I realize that's only part ofthe solution, but hey..

The rub with most TV card FM tuners (unless i'm mistaken) is that you can't concurrently use the FM tuner and the TV tuner (often they share the same ADC or mpeg2 encoding "bus" )

I've been thinking of doing the same thing except re-encoding sirius/howard for personal use/personal podcasting/timeshifting but only looked at what's involved quickly...

e

Yes, you need an XP machine running the Orb software (http://www.orb.com/get_orb/), with a tuner to access TV. They recommend MCE, but any XP with a hardware MPEG2 tuner should do. Once installed you can then access the XP machine via http://my.orb.com/ by entering your login/password from any internet connected device. Including your Linux box of course, but also your phone for instance. Orb will try to establish a peer to peer connection from that device to your XP machine, will detect the correct player (WMP, Real, 3GP) and connection speed, and then will stream the content of your PC over that device, including liveTV. They also give you access to all your music collection, pictures, etc... And they even have an Add-On section where it looks like you can add pretty much anything.

Yes, you need an XP machine running the Orb software (http://www.orb.com/get_orb/), with a tuner to access TV. They recommend MCE, but any XP with a hardware MPEG2 tuner should do. Once installed you can then access the XP machine via http://my.orb.com/ by entering your login/password from any internet connected device. Including your Linux box of course, but also your phone for instance. Orb will try to establish a peer to peer connection from that device to your XP machine, will detect the correct player (WMP, Real, 3GP) and connection speed, and then will stream the content of your PC over that device, including liveTV. They also give you access to all your music collection, pictures, etc... And they even have an Add-On section where it looks like you can add pretty much anything.

I already have someone in Germany (I am in the US) watching ball games and other TV programs live from my computer using Orb

And yes, you can watch using linux...

in addition to all the IM communities adding voice, now that the gazillions eBay paid for skype has validated (i guess) software-based VOIP, there's this whole rash of stuff coming out now to send asynchronous voice messages over the Cloud (podomatic, waxmail, slawesome, V4S, the feature in MSN Messenger, et cetera ad nauseum)

of all of the non-network ones so far the one that seems coolest is V4S http://www.orb.com/skype because of the way it makes email and skype contacts remotely available to me through firefox and how i can send voice messages INTO SKYPE or over email - no more need to get into it. just send the voice message. i can do it from my bloody PHONE, why shouldn't i be able to do that through software-based VOIP??

and if the festoon guys could integrate with Gtalk, and with all the APIs for Triton and ICQ now... yeah. bring on the uber availability, baby! anywhere to everyone!

once you can listen to cellular-radio music in your car.

you can do that today. for free.

http://www.orb.com/ and go to the Custom Channels thing in Setup -> Audio to add any of your Net Radio faves (say, hypothetically, the stuff at http://www.somafm.org/)

i already get all the tunes i want for free on my cingular phone - and i mean ALL: everything i have at home already, everything i listen to on internet radio (mostly the kickass stuff over at http://www.somafm.org/), everything in the Virgin Digital library of, what, 2M songs.

oh, right, and all my podcasts

for free

why do these guys think i'm going to be willing to pay AGAIN for music just because the device is different? once you've put the Web on a device (and, ok, a streaming player that's got access to any URL), i'm done

what i'm wondering is: do you think that local storage will be like 80% or 50% of the way you get your stuff to your phone in a year's time?

the orb freeware http://www.orb.com/ STREAMS my stuff to me, local or online somewhere - transcoding it on the fly to adapt to my at-the-moment bitrate and default media player. for Net radio while driving, that's killer. but what about stuff that's at home? i haven't got a huge-ass memory disk for my phone yet...

mobi's cool, definitely - but me, i prefer getting all the channels i've got at home, without paying an extra fee to get SOME of those channels AGAIN on my mobile phone

also, if i have a blazing EVDO connection, then i should be able to take advantage of it

which is why i use the freeware at http://www.orb.com/ that turns my home PC into a streaming media server, transcoding my media (e.g. my tuner card's MPEG-2s) on the fly to the appropriate format, at the maximum bitrate i can handle right then - all accessed through the Web browser and my native streaming media player; only software install is at home

that's Web2.0 for you, baby!

I've just been playing with the ORB free service. It allows you to take your own PC and turn it into a personal streaming server for audio, video, music, and Live TV. Yup -- if you have a TV Tuner card it will allow you to stream live TV anywhere. The website (www.orb.com) acts as a session setup/co-ordinator so firewalls are not a problem. I suspect (although I haven't verified) that all the streaming is actually P2P between your PC and the end station, orb.com is only used to set up the connection. Besides being firewall friendly, the key thing that orb does is transcoding on the fly -- it will adjust the stream to fit the bandwidth requirements of the transmit pipe and the end device. they state that you can stream to a PDA or certain cell phones, not just PC's but I haven't tried that yet. It does not require PVR software in the PC, but will co-exist with Windows MCE or other PVR software too.

I'd like to add that Sprint has a partnership with Orb Networks too, which does something in the same category.

With Orb, which is free by the way, you can streaming your music directly from your home computer to your cellphone if it can handle 3GP, Real or Windows Media format.
And as an "added bonus", you get free video streaming. And if your home computer has a TV tuner, free TV streaming.
And you can view your photos that are on your home computer on your cell too (nice to show your latest family pictures to your parents).

And yes, it also works on non-Sprint cellphones... and on PDA... and on desktop computers :)

To be fully honest, I have to say that I work for Orb Networks but it's really a nifty product worth checking, especially since it's free.

yeah, annoyingly, this legally-enforced perspective - that every content purchase is actually a purchase of a license to a content experience, and as technology gets over more advanced, the boundaries of that experience can be drawn ever-more-sharply - is exactly why over at http://www.orb.com/ we can neither:

- let you stream ALL the content YOU'VE ALREADY BOUGHT (e.g. iTunes, Rhapsody stuff, etc.) to yourself alone on another device (you can stream any NON-DRM'ed content to yourself from your home PC [WinXP only right now, Linux in Nov, Mac in Dec] to any Web-connected device with a streaming audio player; "any" because of how Orb automagically "shape-shifts" on the fly the content from the format/bitrate/screen-resolution it has on your home PC to whatever format/bitrate/screen-resolution is appropriate for your accessing device)

nor

- let you share streams of SONGS you've created in, say, SONAR or ACID (it's just too dangerous, given the current climate; so we only let you share pictures and share STREAMS of your home videos, since the ratio there of legit home content to bittorrented BG episodes is in our favor, plus is the MPAA really going to suggest that the 4M+ folks who'll buy a camcorder this year can't legitimately share a stream of a baby video with a parent?)

fun adventures within the ultraworld of the content industry, for sure

You can also use TiVo to Go with the Orb free streaming system. Just go to this site to download an add-on to Orb that lets you stream out your TiVo files anywhere you can access http://my.org.com./ You can stream as Windows Media, Real Video or 3G if you're feeling like streaming TiVo to your cell phones. Kinda like a slingbox, but free.

3. Components for Music, Television, Desktop, and Video Game consoles will (in many cases wirelessly) interact with this server.

We are getting there: Orb Networks

Since many of us don't want to install yet more P2P software, mod up parent!
Torrent
Tracker

Here you go.
Max initial upload 30KB/s.
Up for the next 24h or so.

preview, preview, preview!!!!

Torrent here

well.. actually from what it sounds it's just playing videos that you have recorded earlier, maybe through the internet.

kinda like http://www.orb.com/ .

For streaming any media from your PC (which includes TV if you have a tuner) to most devices (laptop, PDA, cellphone), have a look at Orb. They are still in beta testing mode but they look pretty neat. The PC must be a XP MediaCenter however.

And the mouse sensitivity under NextStep really sucks.

Okay, enough of my opinions, let me offer some real info. "I would love to have a NeXT machine but they are rather hard to come by these days...." Actually, that's wrong. NeXT machines are easy to get these days, because nobody wants them. Check out these sites:
Spherical Solutions (www.orb.com)
Black Hole Inc. (www.blackholeinc.com)
Deep Space Tech (www.deepspacetech.com)

Any of them would be happy to sell you a NeXT box for a few hundred bucks. Also, look at the software at Black Hole, Inc. If you're a student, you can get NextStep for under a hundred bucks, if I remember right.

Here are a couple more links that you might find useful:
http://www3.pair.com/mccarthy/nextstep/
http://people.ne.mediaone.net/jkheit

I hope something in here was helpful
ccg

chad at glendenin dot org

btw: check out this site.. You can get refurbed NeXT equipment, though I don't recall if it comes with a full development kit..

I recall the folks at NYC's MindVox used NeXT..