Streaming Media

NOTE: if you have any thoughts on how I can stream other kinds of media, PLEASE do not hesitate to leave a comment below.

Updates:

9/8/2008 - It works! I now have audio (including XM!) and video streaming to my blackberry 8830 using a program called Orb. Here is how I did it:
10/18/2008 - Added a little bit more information about uXM and uSirius.
4/7/2009 - It looks like uXm/uSirius has been shut down (presumably by Sirius). The software should still work until they change their stream.
4/10/2009 - I have installed the new slingbox app on my berry! See how to do it here.

This guide will show you how to stream media (audio and video) to your blackberry. It requires you to have your home pc running at the time that you are trying to stream the media as the pc acts as a kind of "media manager". If you merely want to play internet media like youtube and are having a hard time doing it because of the berry's browser you may want to consider this option as these programs can help you do this.

1. What You Will Need

1) A pc that is running all of the time (or when you want to stream media).
2) A free program called Orb.
3) A blackberry with a release of 4.3 or greater (previous releases do not have media capability).
4) A free program called uXM or uSirius (only if you want to stream XM/Sirius satellite radio).

2. Installing Orb

Orb is extremely easy to install, especially when compared to TVersity. I'm not saying that one is better than the other. TVersity is more complex because it has more capabilities.

Orb is a breeze to install - simply download the program from their site and launch the install. During the installl you will be asked to create an account on their site. This is important as this is what you will use to log in to Orb when you are not on your home network. There is a lot more detail on this here.


3. Configure your router

Once again, this is only necessary if you want to access your media from outside of your network (including your phone). If you are on your network, most UPNP devices will see Orb when it is running. My Directv HR20-700 receiver and PS3 saw it right away.

You will need to forward ports 80 and 554 (Orb) and 19081 (uXM / uSirius) to your pc. Check your router documentation on how to forward ports - it really isn't hard. One important note: if you are serving something else on port 80 (80 is generally reserved for serving websites) then you will need to choose a different port in the Orb configuration utility. I had to do just thi since I have other utilities running on ports 80 through 82.



4. Configure Orb

This is also easy to do. On the pc where you installed Orb simply launch the configuration utility and tell it where your media is.



5. Installing uXM / uSirius

Download an install the software from here. The program is fairly simple to use. Start the program and give it your login information for your online account with XM or Sirius.



At this point you need to add channels one at a time by clicking on the "URL's" button in the application. Select the channel that you want and then grab the URL that is generated.



Copy this URL and insert it into the Orb Audio media area (choose "Open Application" and then "Audio" in Orb) as an audio link (see the link above if you have troubles finding this - Orb has a lot of online documentation). Use the "Add Custom" button to add the URL from the previous step.




6. Access Orb Via a Browser

At this point you can access your data by any platform that supports media streaming. I recommend first trying it out in the browser of a pc so that you know that your settings are correct. You will want to log in to mycast.orb.com no matter what browser you are using.

Since we're interested in accessing this on the Blackberry (or other mobile phones) I'll show you some screenshots from my phone. At this point I've had no problem connecting to audio (including files that are 4 hours long!), video (dependant on codecs but that is an issue for another blog) and internet feeds to both.











6. Accessing XM/Sirius

I'll update this shortly but you may want to simply go to uXM to get directions on this. This is also an easy program to install and you'll need to do a little more port forwarding on your firewall.



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Streaming via Tversity (my original attempt at streaming)

8/12/2008 - I was not running the appropriate release of tversity and apparently this is why I am not able to stream.
8/13/2008 - Still trying to get the newest release of tversity working. Have any suggestions? See here.
8/23/2008 - I now have Tversity (RC 2) working on my server after trying the install for about the 5th time. I really don't know why it worked this time. However, I have a new frustration: the browser won't let me select any of the links when I'm in the tversity page. I've read that others have the same problem at different times and that usually switching between "Select" and "View" mode takes care of the problem. It did not for me. I'm hoping to get a hold of the newest beta release of the 8830 (4.5.0.77)
8/27/2008 - I was able to procure .77 and this did not solve my "Select" problem. A poster on crackberry.com stated that the issue is the RIM proxy servers not being able to properly handle these kinds of requests. And so it goes.... another post says that others have been using Orb to stream to the blackberry so I will shift my focus there. On another note, I can't believe the amount of people that are watching this page! Please feel free to add any comments using the link at the bottom of the page.


One of the frustrations about owning a Blackberry is the inability to stream media to this device. It seems that RIM would have made this a priority seeing as that other devices have been doing this for quite a while. We've heard rumors that it was coming but now it appears that maybe we are close to getting this ability.

I was able to stream mp3's to my berry by using tversity and the newest (beta) OS for the 8830. The results so far are decent - I'm able to play some mp3's from my home server but others fail. I'm sure that one factor in my success rate is size (the bigger ones always fail) but I'm guessing that the berry can only read certain kinds of mp3 files. I haven't had time to investigate this yet. The other obvious shortcoming is that I seem to only be able to play one file at a time.
I did spend some time trying to play my XM streams over the berry using tversity and uXM (uSirius is a different program by the same developer). I did not have any luck with this, nor did I have luck trying to play the default podcasts that load with tversity. I also tried to log in to XM directly but I'm getting the same "does not support iframes" error that I got in previous OS's.

Here is my setup:

1) I have tversity 0.9.11.4 installed on my server. I tried their latest release but it was a resource hog. There is a bit of a learning curve to tversity but it isn't too bad. Be sure to set up access from the internet so that your berry can get to it (test in the browser first).

2) Download and install the newest OS for your phone that supports media streaming. I was able to get a hold of a beta version 4.5.0.51 rel74 and install that. You may have to do a little digging to find out how to do this - check out this link after you find the file (I got it from rapidshare). Make sure that you have the most recent desktop manager installed (with media manager).

3) This is what I have set in my browser config. I'm not sure that all of these are necessary but I could not get it to work when I had it set to Blackberry emulation:



4) At this point you can browser into tversity to your music folders. Be sure to access tversity through the html interface and not the flash interface.



5) Once you get the file you want, tversity asks you what you want to do with it.



6) FINALLY, music that streams to the berry.



Test 1 (large file)
Test 2 (small file)