In one of our most recent articles we detailed why the Xbox360 is an AppleTV competitor. As part of that post, we included a section about how third party software Connect360 allowed you to connect to and stream media to your Xbox360 from your Mac. Turns out, their not the only software that allows you to do this.
Rivet is developed by Cynical Peak Software and offers users everything Connect360 does but with a few enhancements and at a slightly lower price point ($18.95).
While Connect360 acts as a System Preference application, Rivet is a stand alone app that stays active on your Menu Bar (No Dock item included). It quickly and easily finds your media in iTunes and indexes it to make it easily available on your Xbox360.
Rivet Advantages
One advantage that Rivet has is that it allows you to pick the name of the Mac for when it appears on Xbox360. This allows for a bit more creativity and lets you easily see which Mac your looking for if you were running Rivet on multiple Apple Computers at your home.
Another enhancement that Rivet has over Connect360 is its ability to allow you to select multiple folders that may contain your videos. Connect360 allows you to pick one at a time, which can be frustrating if you’re like me and keep different types of movies located throughout your Finder hierarchy.
You can also give each folder a specific name and it will appear that way on the Xbox360 when you connect to stream media. I was extremely grateful for this feature when I discovered it in Rivet.
Coming to a PS3?
In addition to being able to stream media to your Xbox360, An updated version of Rivet is being developed that will include the ability to connect to and stream media to your PS3 (And potentially other dlna devices). The upgrade to version 2 of Rivet is believed to be free for all version 1 owners. This feature would make it that much more superior to nullriver’s Connect360 for anyone that owns both a PS3 and an Xbox360.
Overall, Rivet is great. If you don’t already have Connect360 or the enhanced features listed above are enough for you to switch, head over to cynicalpeak.com and grab your own copy of Rivet.
