Nerve Endings Firing Away

ESPN3 and Univision have been doing a great job on live-streaming FIFA World Cup 2010 matches. The streaming quality has been extremely good and rarely have I seen the dreaded “Buffering” message in the middle of an exciting game. Although ESPN3 is available for select Internet providers and all college campuses, Univision is available everywhere although obviously the commentary is in Spanish. If you are at your computer, you’ve no trouble keeping up with the World Cup and I’ve been watching almost all the games. But what do you do when you are not around a TV or a computer?

We have to go to Houston for Ash’s dad’s surgery on one of the semi-finals days. Since the surgery is expected to be routine and non-serious and most of our time will be spent in the waiting room letting her dad convalesce post-surgery. We wouldn’t have bothered if it was one of the group stage matches but a semi-final cannot be missed. Since we are not sure whether the hospital will have a TV or even have WiFi, we searched for an alternative that would let us watch it on my iPhone. And of course, there is an app for that.

OrbLive ($9.99) streams live TV on your iPhone as long as you can see those programs on your computer. It is also available for all Android phones. First, you have to download, install their software, and create an account at MyCast. Once you do, all you have to do is to install the app, login with your details, and keep the OrbLive software running on your PC. ESPN3 can be found under the TV tab and it works great on WiFi, and 3G networks. I haven’t tested it on the Edge network yet but some reviews say that it does. Some reviews on the App Store can be scathing but I have had no problems and generally if AT&T works fine in your area, you should have no problem on 3G. You can adjust the connecting settings if the picture is blurry. You have to remember to keep the computer at home/office on and the desktop software running. Your desktop basically acts like a server relaying content to your phone so along as the connections are reliable, you should have no problems. Considering that this app has not been banned from the app store and relies on legal media streams, you aren’t breaking any law either.

Of course, OrbLive has other uses like accessing the media on your computer including your iTunes library, movies, photos, and documents. Now, I hope that this does not fail at the time when we need it the most. Now even cricket is available on ESPN3 apart from other great content. You don’t have to miss out on any must-watch games if you are away.