Why can Orb do it but BTV can't?

[gvargas99]

Ok Help me out here.... I do not have BTV Link; however, I can stream live TV and recorded shows inside the home (Network) and outside (Internet). I am basically using the web interface to so this.

So, my questions:
1. Why is special in BTV Link that I can get from the web interface?
2. Why not use the Web Interface instead of BTV Link when using Internet?

Thanks

[ZetaVu]

In a word - hardware decoders, can't use web interface with those.

[djoser]

BTV Link's advantage is that it allows you to stream from HW encoder cards. If you have a SW encoder card, you can watch TV from the web interface, even across the internet. I've checked out Orb (as several people loved it) and quite frankly, my 2.8Ghz can't keep up with it. It's great at what it does but a resource hog since my CPU was constantly pegged at 100%. My opinion is that they need a drastic overhaul of Orb, it's not all it's cracked up to be.

On another note, BTV works wonderfully on my 1Ghz with a HW encoder card, and I'm sure that's why they're reluctant to offer the ability to stream from HW encoder cards. They would have to drastically alter the required specs for the software.

Balance your options, do you want BTV to work on a slower processor or do you want the ability to stream? From what I've concluded, you can't have both.

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by djoser

BTV Link's advantage is that it allows you to stream from HW encoder cards. If you have a SW encoder card, you can watch TV from the web interface, even across the internet. I've checked out Orb (as several people loved it) and quite frankly, my 2.8Ghz can't keep up with it. It's great at what it does but a resource hog since my CPU was constantly pegged at 100%. My opinion is that they need a drastic overhaul of Orb, it's not all it's cracked up to be.

On another note, BTV works wonderfully on my 1Ghz with a HW encoder card, and I'm sure that's why they're reluctant to offer the ability to stream from HW encoder cards. They would have to drastically alter the required specs for the software.

Balance your options, do you want BTV to work on a slower processor or do you want the ability to stream? From what I've concluded, you can't have both.

I realize that your quote is in context of streaming live TV, but I run ORB to stream my pre-recorded media files, and have no issues with CPU utilization. I just wanted to stick up for ORB; I think it's a good product for transporting video streams across the net. It works as promised

[ZetaVu]

Why stream prerecorded content, why not just transfer the film and play local? I suppose the truly impatient would want to watch as it's streaming, but then you need a good buffer to avoid skips, and your receiving process uses more cpu to receive and watch. Livetv is the only thing I bother streaming.

Only reason I use Orb is to stream to my ppc, not impressed with quality streaming on the network, and really don't do a lot of internet streaming. I've said before SS needs a good way to stream low quaility like ORb but as a compliment ot what they do with Link, it does not compete with link. I would only stream to wifi devices limited in speed and connectivity (at low resolution) and over internet, for everything else you would use link or local file transfer. And link through internet is not really an option, although I could see where you log into a webpage that acts like link or btv.

I think the reason you cannot stream from hardware capture is because they do not want it to compete with link. Like I said, reduce quality for streaming, link for high quality. Question, has anyone tried vlc media player over internet?

[mcq3000]

ii use both orb and beyondtv lol

what is the problm exactly? i use btv to watch and timeshift tv and orb for ALL my streaming needs including internet radio and tv, live tv and divx movies etc. And I even run it on windows 64 bit and both work and play nicely flawlessly. Plus if I need to remotely record something I didnt set beforehand I just use ORB.

So again, use Orb for streaming and BTV for watching/timeshifting, it aint like they dont work together :/

[ZetaVu]

Unless you try to use the same capture device for both SS and orb, then one will tie up the other

[yatman]

It looks like a developmental issue. The original BTV was programmed to stream live tv with software mpeg cards and they never got around to rewriting the code to accomodate hw cards.

[bnflaherty]

Its really not That simple. With Hardware Encoding cards -- they output Mpeg -- for streaming -- the video would need to be Re-encoded on-the-fly to WMV format. That is what the other software does -- re-encodes...

[ZetaVu]

So it would require a different setup than link, and stream at lower resolution, both from a bandwith issue and a processor issue. Net result is you get 100% cpu on your server when streaming (which is what happens with Orb) but very little with link.

How does link stream mpg then? What stops you from doing that over the internet?

[ramiss]

Am I really the first one to talk about picture quality? Comparing Link to streaming over the internet is like apples and oranges. Now, admittedly I haven't used Orb, but with my cable upload bandwidth I could never receive BTV Link type quality streaming over the internet. Heck I can't even get it to play without stuttering on my wireless G network.

I would be curious to know what bitrates and PQ people are satisfied with watching streaming tv. I would not be happy unless it was full screen and at least VCR quality. Seems like there should be a "technology" jump in broadband speed before streaming is truly awesome.

Now, just to play both arguments evenly I find it interesting that nobody has been able to answer the very first question on this thread .

Richart

[Zogg]

The beauty of Orb is that it adjusts the bitrate to your connection. I find it guesses a bit too optimistically but you can force it to a lower speed.

I'm rarely 'satisfied' with the PQ I get but sometimes you have to take what you can get. When I'm on the road for a week and trying to watch a few shows that I missed while at business dinners, I'll settle for less that stellar PQ so I can watch the show.

Or if my son is extremely bored somewhere and giving me fits I'll pull out the PocketPC, BT it to the cell phone, and let him watch cartoons at 40kbps. Again less than optimal but it makes him happy, and Orb must be using an MPEG4 codec because they get a lot out of a tiny bitrate.

I use Link at home too, but watching full bitrate videos or live TV on my laptop in the backyard while grilling is too much for the wireless connection. But because you can't even adjust the bitrate separately from recordings makes it a pain to change and then remember to change it back before the next recording. Sure I could manually specify a capture setting for all recordings on an individual basis, but I shouldn't have to do all that extra setup. It should be very easy to set a lower bitrate for Link use. And because Orb sends the data to their server you get a double bandwidth hit if you use it on your local network.

There's a place for both Link and Orb, but neither is perfect. Doesn't mean we can't ask for changes to make them closer to what we want.

Z

[mshe]

Originally Posted by Papa Smurph

btdown,

Could you please explain what streaming MPEG over Internet Explorer has to do with BTV Link? And also please explain what is so "horrible" about BTV Link? It works absolutely amazingly for me. I can view LiveTV from a hardware capture card (MPEG recording) just fine.

I'm very confused by your post.

BTV doesn't work well on low-bandwidth links... on the otherhand, ORB can stream fine on low bandwidth/older CPUs

[btdown]

You cant beat ORB for internet streaming. I don't pay attention to these claims about ORBs performance. If you are fortunate to have a nicely equipped machine, and a decent net connection you will have no problems. From my office, I logged into my home machine over a remote desktop session and started a task manager session. Baseline was 2% CPU utilization.

After starting an Orb session (using most current Orb sw version) streaming pre-recorded content, the CPU utilization was only 15%, and only went up to 65-85% for streaming live tv--and this includes all the crap I have running on the machine (ftp server, uTorrent x 10 torrents, Skype, BTV, firefly, vnc...and so on)---and dont forget this was measured over a remote desktop session.

BTV is #1 for what it was intended to do..Be a "Tivo" for your computer. However, I dont think they pay enough to the attention to the internet steaming issue. They have hinted this will be addressed in future versions, but who knows how long it will take.

[Rich A]

I use BTV-Link on a few computers, one of which is my laptop. I think some guys are missing a big part of the "why BTV-Link".

When you use link, you get the same FSUI as the BTV Server. Along with all it's features and sub menus. So when using it, you are seeing and using all the features of the BTV server.

I often watch (real time and recorded) shows on my wireless lan on a laptop when enjoying the summer evenings on the back yard deck. It has no trouble playing back live or recorded shows .. (EXCEPT HD content of course) The wireless LAN can't handle that.

But it's also nice to be able to have the full functionality of BTV at the link machine. To setup new recordings, search, cancel shows setup new showsqueeze items and well just anything you could do at the server.

Forgetting about "streaming" of course I think the above is one reason why someone would want BTV-Link.