Systm: Stream your video and music anywhere

[ Music ] ^M00:00:03 >> This episode of Systm is brought to you by the HP MediaSmart Server powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server, godaddy.com and netflix.com. Imagine if you could access photos, music or videos no matter where you are -- five miles, five thousand miles away from home, but short of carrying a copy of everything on a portable drive, what do you do? Stream them of course. We're gonna show you how to get your media from your home computer to where ever you are of today's episode of Systm. ^M00:00:30 [ Music ] ^M00:00:50 >> Now some people will tell you the only proper way to share your files from home is to stream them over the network wherever you are is to use something you can roll yourself like Jinzora or maybe if you wanna download files and this is a good one because this stuff we're gonna show you allows you to stream your files, but not download -- cool. It access your files from home for download that's really easy as HFS the HTTP file server. But if you wanna get access to your media anywhere including an iPhone, you need to check out Orb from Orb Network. It's free, it's streaming and you're gonna love it. Roger has been setting it up on a PC at home. >> Yes, in fact I was thinking when we were down in Las Vegas -- unfortunately, I didn't set it up before that period. I was thinking it'll be kind of cool, I can access all my music and access photos, you know I'm sitting there in the buggers' lunch over at NBC. >> One of the things I -- we've mention actually Orb before on Tekzilla and other places. >> Yup. >> And a lot of people like, oh I use -- and they list a lot of programs, all of which are audio only and one of the big things about Orb is it also does video. And what's cool about Orb is it can actually resamples it. If you're using a particular cell phone, it actually re-sample's the video in your format that you can play on that cell phone. >> Yeah, and the great thing is you know it's platform agnostic, other than the fact that you need to run it off a PC that has all the codecs, so if you're doing... >> Yeah. >> DivX movies you wanna make sure you have DivX codec installed. If you're doing you eSata 264, you wanna make sure you got a H.264 codec and so quick rule of thumb is if it won't play in Windows Media Player generally you have the codec installed and it's ready to go. So let's start with the simple set up and the cool thing about Orb is it's completely free. All you really need to do after you download... >> Where did they make their money? >> I don't know. I'm afraid to ask because I might not like the answer. >> Yeah, well you guys said that one of this you probably should call them over and ask because one of things we've seen especially there is a whole category of online music storage or media storage site, you know, "upload your music to our giant servers in the sky and access them from anywhere," and a lot of those actually went out of business. >> Well, the cool thing is Orb does not actually hosting any of your content. What it is doing is actually taking that content and basically pairing up your PC with your client device. In other words it does the address translation from one point to -- after that's done it doesn't have to do anything else. >> Yeah. >> So, once we take a quick shot of my screen here. As you can see it's a very quick set up, you click next and it kind of explains what's happening... >> Basically you punch... >> Yeah. >> A hole through your firewall so you can get into it. >> So, you wanna create a login and a password and if you already have one you can bypass this step entirely and I will do such that. So as I said before you do need a PC, ideally running XP or Vista. I've had no real issues with the latest version of Orb and the cool thing is it actually replicates many of the functions you'd find in Windows Media Connect, so PS3, Xbox360, any set top box that normally connects to your Windows machine is -- can be served by the software. >> So it runs over cable modem, runs over DSL modem. Is it gonna run better over a big fat cable because your upload pipe on DSL tends to be very narrow. >> Yes, so I have DSL at home and I get 3 megabits down. Unfortunately I only get about 768K up. >> Right. >> Now I also picked up cable modem while I was in Vegas and that gives me at least, I think a megabit up. >> Right. >> Megabit and a half up giving me... >> It's basically twice the capacity upwards. >> It's a lot more. Now, this is only important if you're punching through big fat video. >> Right. >> Even if you do kind of compress it down for a small platform like an iPhone. Video will always take more bandwidth... >> Bandwidth. >> Than audio. And you'll notice in it in the video quality it's gonna be a little more blocky and you'll see a little more artifact thing. It doesn't mean it's unwatchable, but the quality might be a little less than you might expect on a broadband connection. >> If you actually want the pure experience of your video files uncompressed or without -- any possibility of any kind of delay, you should physically download your files from your home server to wherever you are. And if it's a 4 gigabyte file that's probably gonna be a prohibitive kind of download to wait for. >> Yeah, and it's a really simple matter of setting up, so if we get to my screen here. I'm gonna go on to connect the configuration file. As you can see all... >> Who's that? Camilla [assumed spelling]? >> Yes, all you need to do is point the application to whatever folder your files are at. By default it uses your My Documents. So if you have any personal items, things that you don't want people to see, you might wanna remove them or just move those photos up because I had a couple of things that showed as like -- oops! Don't want people to see that one. So, once it's set you just click okay and it starts crunching. Now the thing you have to understand is the more stuff you have the longer it takes to crunch. I have a library of you know five thousand plus, you know MP3's and they're all relatively like high, at least 256 and up. So it takes awhile for the application to crunch, so if it's not responding right away you are good. Now, once you're done this is what you end up with, you log in through the Orb website at mycast.org.com and this is what your page looks like. Now, this page is customizable. It's based on Ajax, so you can kind of... >> It's got weather? >> It's got weather. If you don't want anything, you can just go up to the upper right corner. >> Right. >> And you can click the X or if you wanna edit it you move to the edit button and then you can adjust -- for example the zip code here is incorrect. I will do another one that I used to live in, but I don't live there anymore, so don't try to find me. >> Like anyone would want to. >> Now,... >> You'd be shock. >> I have Camilla's photo here on the left and I have it on random -- oh, one thing I wanna notice, you notice this picture is on its side. So that's because the original photo was shot that way, so if you want it right set up you wanna make sure that you adjust that all in your photo library before you start streaming it, but it's very cool. >> Right. >> Now I have my audio, so if I wanted to, I can click -- put any of the formats there or play ball through Windows Media Play. These are all done in WMV in the lossless codec -- or not WMV Windows Media lossless audio codec and the cool thing is it streams beautifully. Now, like you said it will do a -- it will crunch it down and in this case because it's a Windows platform, it's playing through the Windows Media Player here that I can slide or do anything else you want that can take any of the this file. Interestingly enough if you use a Mac you actually play in an embedded window -- not windows, but a web browser client. So whether you're on a Windows -- Windows or Mac OS X platform it works -- it's great, it's awesome. >> I like that file. >> Finally I have... >> So, are you streaming from your home right now? >> Yes, this is -- this is from my home that's roughly four -- okay three and a half miles away. And I have it on my cable modem connection and this is basically everything I set up on my home PC. And the brilliant thing is I can leave this up running. I can go somewhere, say like I can go to New York as long as I can access a web account I can access it. >> Right. >> And one final cool feature about Orb is that it's supports a TV tuner. So if you have a TV tuner in that host PC that you have the Orb software installed on, you can actually stream out television that you have and either watching in your local areas. So whether it's cable or over the air you can watch stations over the web which is kind of cool. In many ways it's almost like -- it's a lot like a Slingbox. You can take that content from a remote location and bring it to where you are physically. ^M00:08:24 [ Music ] ^M00:08:25 >> Let's take a moment to thank one of the sponsors of today's episode godaddy.com. If you wanna make an impact online godaddy.com has what you need, starting in less than $5 a month web hosting from Go Daddy includes 99.9% up time, 24/7 support and free access to the Go Daddy hosting connection. That's the place to quickly install over fifty three applications like Wordpress, Jumo, Drupal, OS Commerce and quite a few more. Godaddy.com makes it easy to customize your own virtual dedicated server. Choose one of three popular plans or select your own Linux or Windows server with all the plan options you need. Now, you want to score a discount? Of course you do enter in code sys1 when you check out. That's S-Y-S-1 and you'll save an additional 10% off your entire order. Some restrictions do apply please see the site for details and do us a favor here at Systm, get your piece of the Internet at godaddy.com and use that code sys1 when you do it. ^M00:09:18 [ Music ] ^M00:09:20 >> Earlier this year we talked about Orb on Tekzilla, our sister program and something really funny happened. We got about 4 zillion e-mails all talking about a single service called Simplify Media, simplifymedia.com is the website and if anything it's actually even easier to set up than Orb is. One of the reasons? Well, its music specific. All it does is audio files that supports MP3, AAC, WMA and Apple lossless including songs that you've paid for and legally owned from the iTune store. How can people use it at the other end? They download the client, they install it, they log in, either you log in as yourself and that gives your access to your service at home or you can invite your friends and basically share your media with up to thirty of your friends. >> Now that you said, it supported the locked version of iTunes music that you buy? >> Right. >> Does that hold true for the Windows variety? >> DRM-protected WMA files, Ogg Vorbis files and FLAC files won't work. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, but over -- I mean that's still a pretty good swash of -- I mean most of my files are MP3's. >> Yeah, and most people have MP3's or AAC if -- you know it's kind an nice thing that in the iTunes is really the most popular store out there, but DRM-locked WMA files if you bought them from another serves are not gonna work with this. It'll actually also support iTune and Winamp playlist you can share those... >> Oh nice. >> Yeah, it's actually cool and you invite your friends in media list and you can -- people can like basically look through your library of files, so you can look through their library of files. >> Is there a limit to the number of people that can log on and stream that music? >> Most -- I mean for intended purposes most people's home connections are gonna be limited, basically their computer power less so, but their actual upload speed on their Internet connection it's gonna be limiting to streaming to about two people simultaneously. >> Okay. >> Not always but in most cases. And one thing it is free. They do have an iPod Touch or iPhone client and that's available for $3.99. >> Still nice. >> And it's actually it works shockingly well. I was actually I was streaming a bunch of stuff in Apple lossless from my server at home or I should say my desktop at home and remember you have to leave the machine with the music on. It has to be up 24/7 and it has to be connected to the Internet 24/7 if you want to log on to basically stream the files from it. >> But you know if you think about it if you have a very power efficient desktop... >> Right. >> Or laptop running and you connected to your UPS, I mean, I think you're pretty much safe. I've -- you know people running home serves all the time, so it's really not all that different. >> No, and actually one other thing you do this you can actually access it through Front Row. >> Oh, now there's a handy... >> Yes. >> Now that's Front Row streaming over so you can use your... >> Yeah. ^M00:11:52 [ Music ] ^M00:11:53 >> We'll take a moment now for our Netflix sponsored Pick of the Week. This week our DVD of choice is Doctor Who. This time-traveling Sci-Fi epic is the longest running Sci-Fi series in the world. Wrapped around the eccentric time war "the Doctor" who along with his companions travel through time and space in a British Police box righting wrong and solving mysteries. If you love science fiction and corky British sensibilities you have to get to know Doctor Who. And while you're getting to know the Doctor don't forget to check out the other 90,000 titles Netflix has to offer including -- we're quite sure the largest selection of Blu ray titles in the universe. You're bound to find any title you're looking for. Plus with 40 shipping centers almost all deliveries happen in a single business day. Shipping both ways -- free. Plan start at $4.99, but as a Systm viewer, you can get a free trial by signing up today at www.netflix.com/systm. >> Now just so people understand what we are doing with these applications is actually streaming our content. You're not actually downloading it anywhere so you can't go around and start swapping music with your buds over at the coffee shop even though it'd be kind of cool. >> Could you -- just make a more clear sample? >> Yes. Let's say I'm in Las Vegas. I really wish I had some operation ID songs, I have them at home at my server I wan it downloaded. You're not gonna download them -- your not gonna download them through Orb, you're not gonna download them through you know... >> Simplify Media. >> Simplify Media, but you can stream them right to my Internet connection, to my cell phone, but I can't download them to my computer and transfer them over. For something like that you would actually need an FTP server or if you want something really, really simple HFS, the HTTP file server. Either one of those in combination with a Dynamic DNS service like DynDNS and there's a laundry list of other options with that will actually put the -- in the [inaudible] for this, but essentially because you have a dynamic IP at home and each IP address can be changed anytime unless you have static IP and it says in your contract with your ISP. So what a Dynamic DNS server does is it basically tracks what your home IP address is and then you can type www.myservers.com/music and automatically log in to take a look at like your music files. Well, DynDNS server allows you to access your service at home no matter what that IP address or essentially the mapping point of the Internet is to your home... >> So, in other words you -- the software itself doesn't need to have a static IP on the Internet. >> Correct. You can get around -- it will be great if you have static IP. If you don't, no problem you just need a Dynamic DNS service like DynDNS. >> And it becomes a lot more flexible too because with Orb, you know I don't have to worry about a lot of the backend, all I know is... >> Right. >> As soon as I turn it on the Orb service, you know connects the client page with the actual server that I've set up. >> Right. >> And it connects it to and my media is accessible and that's all I care about. >> Right. You could set up traditional thing to do would be the set up in FTP server which you can do from home or if you have service on the Internet so you can upload your files there. A simple thing you do if you have a windows machine at home that your running the stuff off of is HFS, the HTTP file server you download a small executable, you double click on it, it runs, you're good to go and you can basically set up accounts, so that people have to you know have a log in and password to have access to your files which is a good thing because anytime you're running a server from home, one of the nice things about Orb or Simplify Media is that they're very, very secure. However, anytime you host your own server at home you have to be very, very cautious that you keep everything up to date, so that you don't get hacked in to the -- into the bad place. >> Not only hack, but making sure that if you have any power issues, if you have say a brownout... >> Right. >> Or a blackout or you have you know someone accidentally turns it off you have a method or a way of getting that back up and running whether -- either it's a spouse or some sort of remote access software or you know just simply having your PC to turn on as soon as the power turns back on. >> And automatically restarts. >> Yes, because you know there are many times when I forgot to switch that in Vaios and when the machine goes down it doesn't turn itself back on. And it's very important especially if something crucial -- I mean I don't think you're gonna do anything mission critical with these applications, but just say, oh my gosh I need my music, where is it, I can't access it. You're one of those people, yeah you wanna double check all those things. Other than that it's pretty, you know, it's pretty straight forward. >> Right. >> The only thing again I think would be the liming factor is your connection that is your ability to upload from your machine up to the Internet cloud. >> Because most people at home have a very tiny upload speed compare to their download speed. Cable ones are better than DSL, but chances are, nothing's gonna approach your office server and for those of you who just hit the light bulb go on above your head, don't think about hosting those stuff at the office unless you're really good friends with the IT manager, unless you wanna get beaten into with the stick and quite possibly fired. >> Especially if your business relies a lot on that network being as uncongested as possible. >> We should point out this is not part two of our video jukebox series. That's gonna be coming up in the next couple of weeks. >> Yes. Along with that you know, zhub, zhub... >> The light saver. The legend -- the now legendary light saver episode. >> You like my little zhub, zhub, even though... >> I do. And actually speaking of zhub, zhub, zhub, which I assume is a light savery noise... >> I guess. I don't know. It's my approximation. >> But we would like to not be approximate. We would like to directly congratulate David Culkin [assumed spelling] and his lovely bride for their safely born home birth, home birth. >> Hold this hospitally stuff, home birth. >> He rolled his own birth. >> He rolled his own birth. DIY, he and the Mrs. >> Hey, you know we should have shot that. That would have been a great episode. >> You obviously haven't attended a birth. >> No, I haven't. The video would be distinctive. >> Hey, you know what... >> In any case, congratulations to David and his wife for successfully having a healthy child. >> Yes. >> It's very cool. >> That's 18 more years. >> That's a commitment people. ^M00:17:40 [ Music ] ^M00:17:41 >> It's time to thank one of our sponsors, the HP MediaSmart Server powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server. The HP MediaSmart Server will automatically back-up multiple computers in your home including both Windows' PCs using Microsoft Windows Home Server, as well as Mac using Apple's Time Machine. Easily and automatically centralized all your digital media files including photos, videos music and any other important files. It's a convenient way to manage your iTunes library and associated playlist and a streamline way to manage your photo libraries, then easily publish your photos to popular photo sharing or social media sites using any Internet connected computer. It's your new entertainment hub that gives you access to your digital media anywhere you have in Internet connection. Easily extend your digital media experiences by conveniently streaming photos, music and videos within your home to other PCs and your TVs through gaming consoles, such as the Xbox 360. Do us a favor here at Systm and check out HP's MediaSmart Server powered by Microsoft Windows Home Server. ^M00:18:40 [ Music ] ^M00:18:41 >> Before we go we got to remind people the Revision3 Store has launched. You can check it out at revision3.com/store. It has got some cool stuff like Systm T-shirts, hats from your favorite Revision3 shows. Who knows what all else is gonna be there perhaps someday Roger's legendary Tekzilla hot sauce. Something he whimpers quietly for each and every morning. >> It's awesome and will be awesome. >> It will be amazing. And as always you've got any ideas, comments or suggestions please email us systm@revision3.com. Don't forget Revisions, the forums at revision3.com/forum and you can find all our older episodes at revision3.com/systm. Thanks everybody for watching I'm Patrick Norton. >> And I'm Roger Chang. >> We hope you enjoy streaming and sharing your favorite file from everywhere. >> Stream, stream. >> From anywhere, anywhere with the Internet. >> Yes. Internet is good. ^M00:19:27 [ Music ]