Stream Your Home Music & Video Collection To Your Cell?

Associated Press reports that “in a move sure to raise the eyebrows of Hollywood and its partners, a California startup will unveil a service Monday that allows subscribers to remotely access their digital media files – even watch live television – from any gadget with an Internet connection.”

“Want to watch your HBO while waiting at the doctor’s office, or use your cell phone instead of a portable music player to listen to songs from your home’s digital jukebox?” asks AP.

“The technology from Orb Networks Inc., based in Union City, grabs a user’s music, video, or photo files stored on their home PCs and streams them to Web-enabled devices such as cell phones, laptops, or personal digital assistants. A user’s cable or satellite TV can also be accessed as long as the video output is somehow hooked up to a home computer network.

“Orb contends any files on a user’s PC – including copy-protected ones, such as songs downloaded from Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store, or films from online movie service MovieLink – will be playable on-the-go through their service.”

This level of protability and personal control is a concept that Hollywood and other content providers have fought in the past. In the end, however, consumers have often won this battle by refusing to buy products that take away their control. Video tapes, cassettes, and recordable CD’s and DVD’s are all examples of the consumer eventually getting what they want – sometimes at the possible expense of the content’s creators.

While Hypebot can hear the howls echoing down Sunset Boulevard as we write this, it’s only a matter of time until the definition of portability includes streaming to locations and hip pockets near (or right on) us all.