It seems like our media library grows in size every day, we find new songs and new artists. We also now have many mobile devices and media playing gadgets. Most of us probably just use iTunes or even just copy and paste out music onto on phones and mobile devices. The problem with this is that sometimes we can’t fit our entire music library onto our phones or maybe we forgot to add a song to our device and we want to listen to it. This can all be solved with a great free piece of software!
The solution is Orb. Orb is a media streaming tool that you install onto your computer. Once installed, as long as your computer is on and connected to the Internet you will be able to stream your entire music library across many different devices. Some TV’s even let you stream your media to them from Orb. The great thing about this is that you can have gigabytes and gigabytes of music, movies, TV shows, and pictures on your main computer and with Orb you will be able to stream them all over the Internet and access them at just about anytime! Although Orb is very easy to set up, you can follow my guide below!
Setting up Orb
Orb will run on Windows as well as Mac. They recommended having at least a 2GHz processor with a Gigabyte of RAM. Note that this is their minimal system requirements. Music and pictures will stream just fine but I would recommend a faster computer if you plan to stream a lot of movies and TV shows. You will also need a relatively fast Internet connection.
Another note to keep in mind is that if you plan to have access to your media at all time you will need to leave a computer on with your media library on it at all times. For this I use a dedicated server that I can put in a different location where it won’t bother anyone and allow it to run all of the time. You don’t have to use a dedicated server, I would just recommend it.
Installing Orb on the computer
This is, for the most part, an easy process. First download the Orb Caster software from Orb’s website. This will be what streams the media to your devices on your computer.
Once downloaded, install the software following the on screen set up guide selecting the location of the music library you would like to share.
Log in or create an Orb Live account with the software.
Finally, launch the Orb Live MyCast software and enable remote sharing. This will allow you to stream your media to many different devices over the internet with your credentials.
Connecting To Your Library
There are many ways to connect to your shared library. You may choose to download the Orb Android or iPhone application. Or you can navigate to http://mycast.orb.com and stream your library to any computer with a web browser. They even have devices that will allow you to stream media to your TV. Regardless of which method you use to stream your media to, just use the credentials for the account we should have created before to log in and start viewing your library.
Now you can start enjoying your libarary! If you need any help, and I mean any help at all – ask me in the comments!
