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Page 1 of 4: Introduction + Pre-Orb Installation
Orb is a media sharing software that is somewhat unique. Instead of sharing your media between your own network of computers, Orb allows you to share you media with anyone with an Internet connection (or just yourself, through a user login system). You can share audio, video, pictures and even video from your capture/TV card, as well as documents. Everything can be accessed through a web interface, and you can even use Orb's Flash based media player to remotely stream your shared audio/video/broadcasts.
Because of Orb's use of a web interface and Flash based player, this opens up the possibility to use Orb to stream your media to your Nintendo Wii. The Nintendo Wii includes a web browser (Opera based - get it for free before the end of June 2007 through the Wii shop), and it supports Flash based media playback, and so, this means you can turn your Wii into a media hub all using free software.
The first part of this guide shows you how to set up Orb on your computer to share your media - you should have some basic understanding of your own computer network/router (eg. what port redirection is, and how to open ports in your firewall - some links and instructions will be provided in any case). You will then be able to access all your media online. The second part of this guide (really short and easy) will then show you how to use your Wii to access your Orb shared media.
Software you'll need (all freeware):
- K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
- Orb
- Optional: Wii Internet Channel
Hardware you'll need:
- Optional: Nintendo Wii console
Step 1: Optional: Pre-Orb Installation
Before you install Orb, it is necessary to ensure that you are capable of playing back most media files on the computer that you are sharing the media from - Orb will rely on this ability to playback media files to open them, convert and then stream the video/audio to it's Flash based player. In most cases, you probably have a good working system that plays most video files, so you can skip this entire step. But if you find that Orb has problems opening/playing various file formats, then please come back to this page and follow the instructions here to find a generic solution to most problems.
Ok, first you may need to uninstall all your existing codec packs and codecs and use K-Lite Mega Codecs Pack. This includes, but is not limited to, DivX, XviD, any codec pack, ffdshow ... everything. Don't worry about messing up playback, because the next step is to download and install the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.
Start the installation process, and K-Lite will detect more codecs and filters on your system that it recommends you remove - do so and uninstall all the software it asks you (it will replace them with a set of decoders, mostly based on ffdshow).
When you get to the "Select Components" screen of the installation, select the "Default" profile.
Scroll down a bit to the "DirectShow video filter" section, and for both the "XviD" and "DivX options , select "ffdshow" to use it as the default decoder. You should probably check the "H.264" checkbox and also select "ffdshow" as the coder (see screenshot below).
Scroll down to the "VFW video codecs" section and uncheck "XviD and "DivX" codec options.
You can leave the other options alone if you wish, since the default profile will cover most types of playback (mainly using ffdshow and Media Player Classic). Press "Next" on in the installer until you get to the "Select Additional Tasks" section, and select which formats you want to use Media Player Classic to play, or deselect to keep using your current player.
As for the other options on this screen, if you don't know or don't care, then leave the other options as it is and continue with the installation process. Once it is done, you can test the playback of your DivX/XviD files, and they should play (in WMP or MPC).
For some extra checks, or if your DivX/XviD files no longer plays, do the following: From the start menu folder that the K-Lite installer created, select the "Configuration" -> "ffdshow" -> "video decoder configuration" program. Make sure your screen looks something like the screenshot below, specifically the "XviD" and "DivX 4/5/6" settings (set to "libavcodec"). Press the "Apply" button, close the configuration window and try playback again of your DivX/XviD file - it should play now.
