What are the Orb system requirements?

 Operating Systems: Windows XP (incl. MCE 2004/2005) with SP2, or
        Vista^* (any of the 4 flavors) or Mac OS X Intel 10.5 or later^**.

- There is no Orb version for Linux at this time.

- Windows Server 2003 will work in Orb, but you won’t be able to stream from an MPEG-2 tuner.

- Windows 2000 Pro will work in Orb if you add GDIPlus.DLL in your System32 folder, but you will not be able to stream live TV in Orb.

Internet connection: a broadband Internet connection (cable, DSL, etc.)

Orb recommends at least 256kbps of upload bandwidth. Your home PC upload speed is particularly important in Orb: at 128kbps, you may experience excessive buffering when streaming video through Orb. Similarly, if you have other applications running on your Orb PC which use your upload bandwidth (e.g., peer-to-peer apps) at the time you are streaming via Orb, your streaming experience will be adversely affected.

Hardware requirements

Processor: a Pentium IV 2.4Ghz or AMD Athlon 3200+ CPU

Orb turns your home PC into a personal media server that streams your audio, video, and TV signal (if you have a TV tuner installed on your PC) to any broadband Internet-connected device anywhere, whether it is another PC, a PDA or a mobile phone. In order to stream any media file format to any media player, on devices with various screen sizes, Orb transcodes your media files on-the-fly to the right format, resolution, and optimal bit rate for your device’s network connection speed at the time you are connected to your Orb PC.

Therefore, depending on the type of media (MP3, WMV, MPEG-2, etc.) you are streaming in Orb, more or less CPU power – the single most important component of Orb system requirements (beside the broadband connection) – will be required for this transcoding. In short, the more powerful your CPU the better.

Memory: 1GB of RAM, and a few GB of disk space (primarily for your TV or webcam recordings)

What about for the Orb client device?

There is no client version of Orb (except for iPhone/iPod Touch), or setup or configuration of any kind required for your Orb client device (i.e., PDA, phone, etc.). Once Orb is installed on your home PC, just log on with your client device to your Orb account at mycast.orb.com to start streaming your media from your home PC.

* At this time, the Orb IR blaster program (for changing local TV channels on a set-top box) does not work on Vista Home Basic and Business editions.

** Currently we do not support Live TV on Mac