Awesome picture quality Vista/MCE/Orb

[Guest jimbouk]

So having played with XPMedia Centre Edition a lot in the past, I spent this evening setting up the Media Centre in Vista Beta 2. I have plugged a Freecom DVB-T USB stick into my laptop, downloaded NVidia PureVideo Decoder and tuned in to the 30 or so tv channels...

Then decided to test the picture quality for a tv recording over Orb - something I had done with my Prophet but wasnt mega impressed.

So I went to myOrb over wifi on the 3100 and selected a tv recording made earlier...and WOW. A five second delay whilst it buffered the stream, then perfect widescreen tv on the 3100 - no jumps and very good audio quality. I wandered around the house and it worked pretty much everywhere, when I got to the limit of my wifi it popped up a warning that it couldn't display the media file, so I walked back two feet and clicked play and it came back immediately.

I am now looking forward to watching all those comedy shows I miss whilst out and about!

[Guest Dr Who]

Is the Freecom in the officially supported list? I have a TV card but its not on the list so I haven't given this a try yet. Do you have to use MCE to get the Orb integration. Sorry, probably being a bit lazy, should read up on the Orb website a bit more.

[Guest mini_man]

you inspired me a bit so i set up my freeview through my videocard and have an internet stream to my c600.

Got bluetooth activesync running with wmp encoder so like you I can have my tv program streamed round my house!

Yeh yeh pathetic replacement but there you go :D

[Guest jimbouk]

Is the Freecom in the officially supported list? I have a TV card but its not on the list so I haven't given this a try yet. Do you have to use MCE to get the Orb integration. Sorry, probably being a bit lazy, should read up on the Orb website a bit more.

Nope...but freecom just released BDA drivers so the tuner now works with MCE and most other tv integration apps.

I dont know if or how well Orb copes with other media apps, but with MCE, you can start and stop the Media Centre, delete viewed recordings and schedule new ones. I would guess that any mpeg 2 recordings should be viewable as you can watch home movies over orb too (as well as pics, music etc).

If you take the time to get Orb to work with your tv tuner, then you can watch live tv wherever you have an internet connection.

[Guest jimbouk]

you inspired me a bit so i set up my freeview through my videocard and have an internet stream to my c600.

Got bluetooth activesync running with wmp encoder so like you I can have my tv program streamed round my house!

Yeh yeh pathetic replacement but there you go :D

But great for watching tv in the bath or on the john!

[Guest Dr Who]

Nope...but freecom just released BDA drivers so the tuner now works with MCE and most other tv integration apps.

I dont know if or how well Orb copes with other media apps, but with MCE, you can start and stop the Media Centre, delete viewed recordings and schedule new ones. I would guess that any mpeg 2 recordings should be viewable as you can watch home movies over orb too (as well as pics, music etc).

If you take the time to get Orb to work with your tv tuner, then you can watch live tv wherever you have an internet connection.

Cheers Jim, guess I will have to suck it and see. Bit loath to put MCE on my laptop but will see if it can deal with my current app. Or has anyone any suggestions for a non-MCE app that Orb integrates well with?

[Guest mini_man]

god I wish I had an unlimited data plan or something with a decent speed!

On orange with a payg on a c600 woo! I could do the pound deal at gprs rates!!

Tv is sure good quality at gprs speeds!