I have to come clean for a minute. I haven’t purchased any Mac or PC software in well over three years. I’m a pirating machine and I’d like to think I do it very well. However, I recently got a demo of some software called MediaLink from Nullriver Software. It essentially links my Macs to my Playstation 3 out in the living room of my apartment. This allows me to stream all those pirated TV shows and movies to the big screen TV out in the other room. I can also stream all my iPhoto photos and iTunes music as well. Think of it as a godsend.

Well after using the demo, I said “Fuck it.” and plunked down the $20 for MediaLink. It feels nice to support a company making a utility that is indispensable to me. My roommates and I have been ghetto-hacking our TV for months, trying to get out movies and such to stream or playback. Now my PS3 does everything I’ve ever wanted: Next-gen gaming, Blu-ray playback, classic gaming, streaming audio, video and photos and Internet browsing.

If you have a Playstation 3, I highly recommend checking out MediaLink. You won’t regret it. Nullriver also makes a piece of software for the Xbox 360 called Connect360 that does the same sort of thing.

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Step aside Microsoft, there’s a new Netflix streamer in town. Today, Netflix announced that it has added TiVo to its growing list of streaming partners. Being that TiVo’s subscriber base hasn’t grown much since 2005, we’re thinking TiVo needs this partnership more than Netflix; considering Netflix has already partnered with LG, Microsoft and Samsung.

Netflix will be available to TiVo Series3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL owners. The two companies will begin testing the new service today in “several thousand” U.S. households, and it’s expected to be widely available in early December. Whether or not this will keep TiVo in the business of DVR remains to be seen. For TiVo’s sake, this partnership should keep them in the running for a few more years.

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Ever wanted to stream video live from your favorite ball game? Say, perhaps, a game where the Philadelphia Phillies are absolutely killing that other team. Perfect. We all know you’re a business power user with a Blackberry Bold or Curve. Hell, maybe your wife even has the Pearl. Either way, you should head over to Qik’s website and get the just-released alpha version of the Qik application for your Blackberry. You’ll be able to stream live video right from your Blackberry, ensuring that your cousin in St. Petersburg, Florida has to suffer more than usual.

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Seems NBC and SNL creator Lorne Michaels want to start a streaming video site that will feature only SNL content. Schmitt’s Gay, The Rapists for 500 and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, all in one place. No wonder it’s so chilly. Hell froze over!

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Title says it all. Read the official Netflix blog post below.

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Finally, Amazon has made a move that will no doubt shake up the world of online video. One of it’s hottest properties, IMDb.com, will now be offering over 6,000 full-length films and TV episodes for - wait for it - free. Yes, free. Amazon is actively promoting this and is encouraging other directors and filmmakers to get involved. The flicks will be available for streaming from any computer, save Michael Arrington’s Fantasy Tablet. Still, with only ~6000 movies and shows available, how could could the lineup be?
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As we mentioned yesterday, the online music service Muxtape shut down. While this is yet another lame move by the RIAA, I’ve found I don’t miss Muxtape. It was really just too basic of a service for me to get into it or hyped up about it. Plus, having to upload one track at a time really sucked. So with Muxtape gone, I decided to give 8tracks.com a go.

Sign up is easy. Very straightforward stuff. The interface is much cleaner and reminds me of the old version of Last.fm. Anyways, you login and create a mix. This mix contains 8 tracks, all of which will not be revealed unless a listener listens to your mix all the way through. You can upload all your tracks at once (in a queue) and go make a sandwich while they upload. Once that’s done, just drag your tracks to the mix and figure out an order. Create your mix and you’re good to go!

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The RIAA keeps chugging along and putting people with good intentions out of business. The latest casualty is Muxtape, an online mixtape service that I used and really enjoyed. You uploaded 13 of your favorite tracks and that’d be about it. What do I think will happen now? Nothing. Muxtape is not/does not have the money to license all those tracks at the current royalty rates. It was a nice ride but until the recording industry “gets it,” I’m afraid we’re screwed.

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It’s been a few weeks since we attended the Last HOPE Conference but it’s still fresh in our minds. For those of you who didn’t get a chance to attend or missed some of the great talks, there is good news to be had. 2600 has kindly put up all of the talks on their website, including both streaming and downloadable versions. You can also grab HOPE-related DVDs and a brand spankin’ new t-shirt. Check it out by hitting the link below.

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Sony announced their WiFi HiFi VGF-WA1 at CES earlier, whilst we don’t have our hands-on with them, those folks from Impress Japan has already reviewed it. It is always good to get some more background information before we import blindly. The WA1 turned out disappointing. The installing process was okay, but not particularly userfriendly, it also required quite some manual tweaking with the ports and connectivity set-ups, it is even worse when you have internet-security programs installed. Secondly, the sound quality was only average, even to an average ear. The built-in 24bit DSP system did however improve the sound quality a bit. Thirdly the WA1 might not be able to support all internet radios, because it is locked onto live365.com for some Sony-reasons, so you can either subscribe to music that you don’t necessarily like, or be happy with the free stations with pretty low bit-rates. So far from what we heard, the WA1 is a no-no, hopefully these will be fixed by firmware updates in the future. — Sam Chan

Nishikawa reviews VGF-WA1 [Impress]