I don’t know about you, but I only want one box plugged into my television set. I want to play games and watch Blu-Rays, so I’m kind of stuck with a Playstation 3 as that one box. Apple TV gets the boot, but that doesn’t mean I can’t stream from iTunes to my TV. I just need a neat little app called MediaLink from NullRiver.
For only $20 USD, this app will stream any DRM-free video from your Mac to your PS3. Through the miracle of modern networking, your PS3 will automatically see your Mac once you launch MediaLink. No fiddling required. Right from your XrossMediaBar, you can play that vacation video you just exported without the need to plug anything in or transfer any files.
Impressively, it offers the option to dynamically transcode your videos to a lower bitrate for pause-free streaming over slower networks. You three people still using 802.11b can rejoice. Re-compressed video won’t look as sharp, but at least it won’t take a half-hour to buffer.
Although I feel MediaLink’s strength lies with streaming video, it isn’t limited to just that. It will also stream DRM-free music from your iTunes library and your photos from your iPhoto Library. It isn’t limited to the iLife suite either. If you prefer to just store your media in folders, it’ll stream right from them as well.
If you like the nitty gritty, here are the formats it accepts: MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264, DIVX, XVID, AVI, WMV, ASF, MOV, MKV, FLV, JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, RAW, PDF, PS, EPS, and TGA.
This app is affordable, simple, and well designed. I couldn’t recommend it any higher.
