Stream anything to your Nokia 770 with Orb

I don't know why it took me so long to do so, but I finally loaded Orb on my Windows Media Center. After quite a bit of playing, I got it to stream video over to my Nokia 770. Here's a YouTube video:

Nokia 770 compatible video download (converted with Uhro Konttori's Media Converter):
http://thoughtfix.com/770/thoughtfix-770-orb.avi
How well does it work?
The Orb service works beautifully, but I wish there were customizable front-ends or an SDK for making a native application on the handheld. The web interface, while functional and compatible, leaves a bit to be desired. I also wish I could turn off the "video information" page when I choose a video and just jump right to streaming. Overall, though, it's an excellent service. It's exactly what I've been looking for.

Required:

• Orb software and an Orb account. This is free!
  
• A Windows box that meets Orb system requirements. I used a slower machine so you can see the effect it had on video quality.
• Some videos or music files.
  
• RealVideo CODECs. I use RealAlternative. It took me a while to figure out that part. It is required!
  

Installation and operation:
Follow Orb's normal setup and installation, create an Orb account, then log into the Orb web site at http://my.orb.com. Go through the menus and add your TV, videos, and music. It's all very user-friendly and straightforward.

From your Nokia 770, log into your Orb account.
You will see the same web interface you saw on your full size computer. It's not 800 pixels optimized but there's very little side scrolling needed. The first thing you want to do is turn the bit rate WAY DOWN because the Nokia 770 has a hard time with high bit rate Tap on Tools, then set the bit rate between 200 and 300 and the CODEC to RealVideo. I tried 3GP but couldn't get it to work.

Now go and find some video to watch! It automatically detected, indexed, and thumbnailed my recorded TV and my video folders.
I chose an episode of South Park to begin with. This is the screen it shows to summarize a video:
Clicking the blue "Play" button in the upper right corner starts the video stream. It will give a URL to the RealVideo encoded stream and will prompt to launch the Media Player:
Tap "Open" and you will see your content! If you haven't by now, watch the video above and have a looksie.

Some troubleshooting advice:

• Make sure both your router's firewall and Windows Firewall are configured to allow the ports in the Orb configuration.
  
• By default, many broadband ISPs block incoming port 80, which also happens to be the default Windows Media port. Change that port number if you want to stream to your Windows box.
  
• When making any changes to Orb's configuration, restart Orb. It just works better that way.
• I made a post about that banding issue seen in the video on Orb support forums here. If an answers shows up, it will most likely be there. Thanks much to Qapf who helped me walk through some CODEC troubleshooting.
  

Other ThoughtFix blog related news:

• No qualifying entries to the development contest yet.
• I am writing a parallel blog about UltraMobile PCs. Yes, I went the Microsoft route too. My brand new white TabletKiosk eo should arrive Tuesday. The new blog is http://www.ultramobilegeek.com
• Yesterday I recorded a few videos to demonstrate Maemo Mapper and NONE turned out. I'll try again soon but I may end up making a text-and-images-only post.