Review: Hauppage TV Anywhere media streaming device

The latest buzzword among trendy media types is ‘Martini media’ – the ability to watch your favourite TV programs or films ‘anytime, any place, anywhere’.

Well, we’ve already got the ‘anytime’ bit, as you can use your PC or TV set-top box to record programs and pause live broadcasts so that you can watch them whenever you want.

Hauppage’s TV Anywhere takes the next step into ‘anywhere’, and allows TV recordings to be viewed when on the move.

The device is actually a fairly conventional TV tuner. It connects to a PC's USB 2 port and has inputs for a TV aerial or set-top box. This allows it to record programs straight onto a PC’s hard disk.

It’s also got a built-in FM radio receiver, along with composite and S-Video input connectors, for connecting a camcorder.

The thing that sets TV Anywhere apart from other TV tuners is that it is supplied with an extra piece of software called Orb. This clever program allows TV recordings to be transmitted across the internet.

Recorded programs can be accessed via the Orb website by any mobile device that has a web browser and an internet connection.

The obvious example is to use a notebook computer in a hotel room if you’re on holiday or away on a business trip. However, if you mobile phone has an internet connection and a web browser, it can also be used to watch TV pretty much anywhere in the world.

The Orb service is free, and it can adjust the video image to suit the speed of your internet connection. To get a good, full-screen image on a notebook computer a connection speed of at least 256kits/sec is needed.

Mobile phones tend to have slower connection speeds, so the image quality will be poorer, but this shouldn't be too much of a problem as you'll only be viewing the video on a small phone screen anyway.

Other options, such as pausing or fast-forward will depend on the media player software you have on your phone or laptop. Thankfully, Windows Media Player is supported.

The installation process is a bit confusing, and we needed to call Hauppage’s technical support people in order to install the software properly.

We can’t help thinking that you need to be tragically addicted to television to actually want to do this, but given the zombie-like behaviour of many people as they stare at their mobile phones on trains and buses there’s seems to be a growing market for it already.

Plus, with devices like Slingbox and Sony LocationFree that allow you to watch live TV as well as recordings from anywhere in the world, TV Anywhere simply adds another option to the mix.

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