A little bit of research and a few email addresses is all you need to enjoy all the music, movies, and TV you could want!

First up, Free Streaming Music.

Spotify and GrooveShark are two services that offer huge selections of songs available to stream for free, over and over again. They both offer you the ability to save your favorite tracks in custom playlists. Spotify and GrooveShark also offer a “premium” account which has extra perks like being able to stream on mobile devices without advertisements.

Free Streaming Movies and TV

Netflix has a standing offer for a free one-month trial, all you need to start the instant streaming is an e-mail address. A new e-mail address gets you another one-month trial. After you have had your fill of free, feel free to to start paying if you really feel the service is worth it. I currently pay for the streaming service and they are constantly adding better and better content. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sure you’re on the same track as me when you think “subscription service”, but I  feel like Apple has other plans for its recent acquisition.

How Lala works. Lala’s Music Mover quickly matches the songs on your computer to Lala’s licensed catalog. Songs you already have and playlists you’ve created are instantly added to your Lala collection for free. The number of songs you can add is unlimited. Lala users have been purchasing the rights to stream their music an unlimited number of times for ten cents per song

As stated above, the idea with Lala is to be able to listen to your music anywhere on the web. Simple sync your home music with Lala and you’re good to go. Whether or not Apple will stick to this business model or not is still unknown, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Here is what others think Apple has in mind for Lala:

“The deal makes sense. It seems inevitable that Apple will eventually launch its own cloud-based streaming music service. And that’s exactly what Lala is — an iTunes in the cloud, with some interesting pricing mechanics.” -TechCrunch

“Other music industry insiders are wondering what Apple is buying exactly. Lala’s licenses for streaming music with the major music labels are not transferable to any acquirer.” -NYTimes

GenAudio recently released AstoundStereo Expander 1.2. AstoundStereo Expander is a program that essentially enhances and expands you current stereo sound.

AstoundStereo is a 4D sound experience using only two audio channels, such as headphones or laptop speakers. It processes all digital audio on your laptop or desktop computer in real-time utilizing AstoundSound technology to enhance the audio in your existing music, movie and game collections.

I gave this little program a test drive last night while watching Quantum of Solace. (Note: I was using a 2.1 external sound system from AlTec Lansing. Your experience may differ.) I toggled it on and off while watching and re-watching certain parts of the movie. For the most part it did a pretty good job of actually making it sound better. The difference wasn’t drastic but it was a pleasant improvement from what I was used to.

This seems very similar to Dolby’s 5.1 Stereo Headphone Technology.

You can try out the demo for free our pick up a full copy for $39.95
astoundstereo.com

The Western Digital HD Media Player Set-top box!
Pirated copy of Planet Earth, meet huge HD LCD TV!

The Western Digital HD Media center is essentially a gateway for your digital entertainment files.

Whether it be photos, music, or videos, the WD TV will deliver in up 1080p goodness. It features both HDMI and SPDIF out for true HD sound and video. The part of this product that really makes it stand out from the rest is its likable list of supported audio and video formats:

Video

• MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264),
  MTS, TP, TS (If your curious, almost all HD downloads use some form of H.264 and/or .MKV)

Audio

• MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA

All you have to do is connect an external USB hard drive or thumbdrive. The slick and elegant user interface will help you navigate your drive in order to find your media.

You can pick on up to day for as little as $89.99 Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player

More then likely either you or someone you know owns one. They are Muti-Media powerhouses. Great user interfaces and access to the internet make all of them ideal candidates for one thing. Media Streaming. That is, streaming your HD movies, tunes, and pics over your home network to your PS3,Wii, or 360. It may sound daunting, but these 3 little apps make it a breeze!

First up, Sony’s Playstation 3.

MediaLink. Your PlayStation 3 has been craving the media on your Mac. Finally, complete Macintosh and Playstation 3 integration is upon us. MediaLink can stream Music,Video, and Photos to your Mac. It does so by taking advantage of the UPnP technology of your router.

Enjoying your media through the PlayStation 3 has never been this easy, on any platform — and the Mac isn’t just any platform. Its our favorite platform, so we’ve taken great care to create a seamless solution. MediaLink can stream and copy the following formats to your PS3: MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV-MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4-H.264, DIVX, XVID-AVI, WMV, ASF-JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP-RAW, PDF, PS, EPS, TGA.
Read the rest of this entry »

Apple’s own Front Row is a pretty solid media center, as long as you are just looking to watch/listen to your media. It is simple and it does its job well. However, some people like a few more feature when it comes to a media center, especially those who are using there computer solely as a media center. Enter Plex.

On the outside, Plex may look just like any other media center, but inside you will find it is packed with useful and ingenious features.

For starters Plex has the ability to automatically fetch and apply Metadata from IMDB and TVDB to your media. This feature paired with Plex’s file manager makes organizing your media powerful and convenient. Support for RSS feeds and Shoutcast streams also make Plex stand out from other media center options.
Read the rest of this entry »

Again I apologize for my deviation from the ever so elegant world of Apple. However, I feel I must bring you some news.

A recent Sound and Vision mag article states that Blu-ray is preferred over Video On Demand by a factor of 10 to 1. I have been fighting a war for awhile trying to convince people of this. Some agree, however others believe streaming/downloadable content is king. The fact that Netflix could deliver a Blu-ray quality movie faster than most could download it proves my point.

Blu-ray movie from netflix = 24hrs

Downloading 25GB Blu-ray movie @8mbps (mega bits per second) = 31hrs.

Keep in mind that average is said to be a slower 5mbps.

You can find the original story here: sondandvisionmag.com

Livestation.com along with the live station streaming player make for an ideal IPTV setup. Its cross platform solutions(Linux,Windows, and OS X) and high quality picture make a nice bundle

Once you have downloaded and installed the application you create a user account. After your acccount is created you get access to a handful of high quality streaming channels. However, you can then go to Livestation.com to add hundreds of other channels not pre-packeged with the player.(Discovery Channel,CNN,FOX,BBC,CBC, and NBC are just a few) Livestation.com is constantly working on adding new channels to help beef up the lineup. So, if you’re interested. Give it a look here: Livestation.com

1. MacMod.com – This site is my personal favorite. It showcases some of the most creative content and unique designs from the Apple modding community.
2. XLR8yourmac.com – XLR8Yourmac provides tons of info and articles about getting the most out of your Mac. Product reviews and how-to’s for getting the most out of your Mac. This is the site that introduced me to ATIccelerator II, An on-the-fly overclocking utility for Macs using ATI cards.
3. Mac-Forums.com – The Mac Forums offer a very active user base if your looking for an alternative to the Apple support forums. These forums tend to offer some info not allowed by Apple.

If you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments section below.

The American music industry may be pressuring Dell and other computer manufacturers to disable stereo recording support in an artificial attempt to discourage piracy, say accounts from users. Users of Dell systems with SigmaTel chips in particular claim to be only allowed single-channel recording out of the box and are told that an official solution that restores stereo input will cost $99; Gateway and (in Europe) Packard Bell systems with the audio hardware are also said to be affected.

More via Electronista