short answer is that the way orb works is, if you can play content on your PC, you can stream that content from your PC to whatever web-enabled device you’re on AWAY from your PC when you want to enjoy that some content, with the orb software *on your own PC* transcoding the content on the fly into the right file format, bitrate, and screen rez for your accessing device. there’s no alternate/secondary copy of the file being stored anywhere. this isn’t a rival broadcast solution – it’s mycasting, from you to yourself.

and hey bdogg – i was actually unsurprised, if disappointed as a user and for the space itself, at how youtube’s verizon deal was yet another walled-garden broadcast attempt on mobile (an outmoded model that the EU carriers like our partners vodafone, 3, and orange have already abandoned). clever of youtube to get verizon to foot the bill (if that’s what’s happening) for the production and programming costs of getting some of youtube onto verizon. OUR solution, of course, is very skype-like in that the *user’s own infrastructure* does the production work for that specific user – no add’l cost to the content provider OR the carrier. so from our standpoint, verizon and all the other carriers really ought to follow the EU carriers’ lead and just have folks download Orb onto their PCs to do the work FOR them!

marc – just about the only content you can’t mycast to yourself through Orb out of the box is iTunes *purchased* content because Apple’s so-called FairPlay DRM doesn’t have a licensing program like The Borg does for WMDRM (i have to say that Msft is actually providing a platform for an ecosystem with their DRM, whereas Apple…)

I heard that Orb isn’t compatible with iTunes though, so its service is a bit limiting. Do you think Orb will start licensing their service to the telcos for their music stores?

Hope to catch up soon. All the best,
marc