Digital Home Thoughts: Orb TV Plans To Do What Google TV Has Failed To

"Orb TV is aiming to succeed where Google TV and Boxee have stumbled. The new video-streaming product from Orb Networks aims to let users watch a wide variety of streaming video on their big-screen TVs. That sounds like a wide variety of Internet TV products that we've seen introduced this fall. The difference with Orb TV is that it should be able to deliver unfettered access to a wide variety of online video sites, including TV network sites (Hulu, ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com, and so forth) that have since been blocked when accessing from the built-in Flash-enabled Web browsers found on Google TV products, Boxee, and the PlayStation 3."

Google TV in partucluar has struggled since launch, mainly with content being denied to them by the TV networks. Orb TV does apparently have unrestricted access to the streaming media from the TV networks which does make it a much more attractive option over Google TV. However, as pointed out in the CNet article, there isn't any HD content and it requires server software to be installed on a separate PC. Compared to other offerings such as Google TV and Boxee which are standalone devices, the Orb TV offering has a circular 'puck' which connects to the TV, and then talks to the server software on a PC on your network. It seems excessive to require both, but at least it does seem to provide what the others don't. Of course when Google sort out their problems with the networks, then a single device will be the more attractive option.