System Requirements

To have the best MyCasting experience, your home computer on which you install Orb 2.0 needs the following:

  • AMD Athlon 3200+ processor or equivalent, or Intel Pentium IV 2.4Ghz processor or equivalent (Note that a slower processor may cause excessive buffering, "stuttering", or "choppiness" when streaming TV or videos)
  • 512MB of RAM
  • 100MB available disk space
  • Windows XP (Home or Professional) with Service Pack 2 or later, or Windows XP Media Center Edition (2004 or 2005). Orb is also compatible with Windows Vista and Mac OS X Intel 10.5 or later.
  • Broadband Internet connection

Note: We recommend a minimum of 1GB of available disk space for writing media (recorded TV, video, audio and photo) files.

TV Tuners for Windows Users
A supported TV Tuner is required for streaming live TV in Orb. Be sure you have the latest driver for your current OS.

Supported Single Analog Tuners (aka, MPEG-2 tuners)
All tuners with a built-in hardware MPEG-2 encoder (aka. MPEG-2 tuners) including, but not limited to:

  • Hauppauge: WinTV PVR-150 - Buy now and save $20!
  • Hauppauge: WinTV PVR-USB2 - Buy now and save $20!
  • Hauppauge: WinTV PVR-250, and 350
  • ADS Instant TV Deluxe PTV-305 PCI - Buy now (enter promotional code Orb305)
  • ADS Instant TV Deluxe USB (External)
  • Diamond XtremeTV PVR660 USB 2.0 - Buy now
  • Diamond XtremeTV PVR560 PCI - Buy now
  • AVerMedia UltraTV Media Center PCI 500 and PCI 550
  • Emuzed Angel Dual TV Tuner

*Important: ADS Tuners are for Windows XP only and are not compatible with Media Center Edition PCs.

Supported Over-The-Air (OTA) Digital Tuners - ATSC Tuners
All Microsoft BDA-compatible ATSC tuners, including, but not limited to:

  • ATI HDTV Wonder (Hybrid ATSC/analog PCI card)
  • VBOX: DTA-150 and DTA-151 (PCI cards)
  • VBOX: USB-A 3560 (USB-2 external); ATSC 2060
  • ATSC tuners compatible with Media Center

NOTE on DVB tuners:

  1. Most DVB-T (terrestrial) digital tuners should work in Orb. However, this functionality is offered as a "beta" and is therefore not fully supported at this time.
  2. DVB-S (satellite) digital tuners do not work in Orb at this time.

Supported Dual Tuners

  • Hauppauge WinTV 500MCE PCI (for Media Centers only)
  • Emuzed Angel Dual TV Tuner PCI
  • Adaptec VideOh! Media Center USB 2.0 (AVC-3610)
  • Novac NV-TV300D2 Dual-TV2
  • NVIDIA Dual-TV

Note on software-based, non-MPEG2 TV tuners
At this time, most non-MPEG2 tuners (such as: ATI All-In-Wonder family of tuners; Hauppauge soft-PVR USB tuners; etc.) will work in Orb. However the implementation of this functionality is still in beta and therefore not supported. If you cannot make your non-MPEG2 tuner work in Orb, search Orb forum posts at forums.orb.com where issues related to this type of tuners are discussed, and basic setup tips are offered.

Set-Top Boxes
If your TV setup includes a Set-Top Box (STB), to change TV channels in Orb you will need a Microsoft MCE-compatible Infra-Red (IR) Blaster (usually comes bundled with the MCE remote control). The following Set-Top Boxes are supported by Orb:

  • TiVo Series 1 and Series 2
  • Motorola DCT-2000 to DCT-6000
  • Scientific Atlanta (SA) Explorer Series 2000 to 8000
  • Echostar 301 and 501 for Dish Networks

Remote Controls and IR Blasters
The following Remote Controls include IR Blasters supported by Orb:

  • Philips Media Center Remote Control
  • SMK Remote Control for Windows XP Media Center Edition
  • Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition Remote Control
  • Hewlett Packard Remote Control for Windows XP Media Center Edition
  • USB-UIRT (Universal Infrared Receiver Transmitter)
  • ADS IR Blaster

(*) NOTE: The ADS IR Blaster is for Windows XP only. It is NOT MCE-compatible and only works with the ADS Instant TV Deluxe USB tuner listed above