How to access your videos from anywhere in the world
I don't like changing DVD's, so if I own it; it's ripped onto a hard drive and available to every networked device in my house. This means that any device connected to my home network has every media file I own available all the time. That's fine because the laptop in the bedroom has just as much South Park as my workstation. However, what about the TV in the living room?
[this picture was taken from planet-wii.fr]
What about your TV in the living room?
It's all well and good having all the computers in the house sorted but chances are most of your video watching is done on a TV. True enough you could build a PC as a proper media centre and TV-Out the video footage - however that's not the angle I choose.
I have a Nintendo Wii - an excellent games console, fun for all the family and connected to the TV. The Wii cannot act as a media centre on it's own - but it does have Internet access and that's the key. Using a specific application (both web-client and server) it is possible to have perminant access to all your media files wherever you have an Internet connection.
Orb allows full remote access to your files
Orb is a cunning application; install the server on your desired machine (after creating an account) and setup which files/folder/directories etc you want accessible. Once that's done you leave the application running and it's making your files available. You can then visit the web-client (through your browser of choice) and login using your chosen credentials. This then gives you direct access to your files.Once you've logged in you can see the folders you have made available. Opting to play a video file results in the video being re-broadcasted into Windows Media Player format (on the fly - provided the server machine has the codecs to read the video). This is excellent because it means that any media you have is readily available from any Internet enabled device.
Example
While holidaying a few hundred miles from home myself and the lovely girlfriend were left stranded, bored in bed in a power-cut. So we grabbed her mobile phone, connected to the Internet and used Orb to watch South Park (which was sitting on my computer at home). South Park which had been Real-Player encoded I might add. Any Internet enabled device is able to watch your videos this way.
So, if you have an Internet enabled Wii then you can access any media file served by the Orb server application. Another bonus is that when you're accessing Orb from within the local network; it doesn't serve videos via their servers - it comes direct without leaving your network. Which is nice.
Add in a Slingbox
Add a Slingbox to the equation and you're well away. The Slingbox is another cunning gadget that I also have in my home; it sits next to the Wii and it acts as a Freeview box. It accepts signals from the TV aerial and is able to resend those to the TV; however it also has the nifty ability of "planeshifting" your TV signal. In a similar light to the Orb system; you setup the Slingbox and apply credentials to it. On another Internet enabled device (desktop, laptop, PDA, phone etc) you install the client - combine the two and you can watch live TV footage from your remote device - which is very cool.
Again, this means that you can be hundreds of miles away from your home (and by extension your TV and Internet connection too) but still be able to watch live TV on your Internet enabled mobile phone.
So in conclusion, if you install Orb on the machine that houses your media files then you should have almost complete access to the directories that you specify whether you're using a Nintendo Wii mere feet from the machine or whether you're 600 miles away visiting relatives. Orb is one of the most useful applications I have ever encountered and while you may debate the significance of online video; it's hard to argue the down-right coolness of Orb.
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