UPDATE: Before you get too far into this article, I should let you know that 9 days and 5 emails after first contacting them (albeit, after threatening a PayPal dispute and publishing this article) the team at NullRiver finally got back to me. They’ve been apologetic and eager to help, going so far as to offer me a free copy of Connect360 so that I can try that in place of MediaLink in case we can’t get it to work. That being said, feel free to read about the experience that got me to this point;
As many a Mac owner knows, the simple joys of streaming ones video and music content to ones console is pretty much reserved to the dog and pony set — it’s a delicious treat served only to Windows users. That is, served only to Windows users unless you have a little help.
Enter Nullriver — the Mac fanatics shining white knight in the world of console video streaming. Their initial offering in this field, Connect360, allowed Mac users to stream their content from any Mac on their network right to their 360. Their second product, MediaLink, did the same for the PS3. It all sounds fine and dandy — but what kind of people are Nullriver when push comes to shove? Do they support their product, or leave you flapping in the wind?
Unfortunately this is a question I had to have answered first hand. Recently I’d made the decision, based on the stellar reviews MediaLink has gotten, to cancel my satellite TV and resort exclusively to DVD viewing and streaming from my vast Mac-stored video collection. I purchased MediaLink after using their 30 minute trial version. Turns out 30 minutes is about as long as you’ll ever get it to work.
Since that time MediaLink has eaten up all the memory on my Mac, generally refuses to see my PS3 without disabling and re-enabling the program, and fails instantly on my second attempt to watch anything. Sure it works to watch a video, but if I want to watch a second I have to sneak into my bedroom, not wake my wife, and fiddle with my MediaLink settings. That’s just not going to fly.
After contacting them about my problems via their technical support form, I received a reply in pre-generated form letter fashion. It was essentially “here’s some reason your Mac and PS3 might not be talking.” It didn’t address my specific issue or provide any tips that proved useful in resolving my situation. I replied to that email. Days passed. After not hearing back I sent tech support another message via the site form. No response. I attempted to contact them via general feedback. No response.
Finally I sent one last email to them insisting that unless they can work with me, I’d like to get my money back as per their 30-day guarantee/return policy. No surprise, no response.
So now I’m out $20, a dozen or so hours of my time spent trying to fix this, and a functional solution for my TV viewing.
Nullriver may make a good product when it works — but if they won’t support it when it doesn’t, is this really a company you want to gamble on?
