What is your PowerPC Mac used for now?

Wow, I feel inadequate posting after those audio setup pics

My PowerBook G4 12" is currently under my bed running OGR-27 packets for distributed.net. (The G4 is, oddly enough, the most efficient CPU available, per clock, for this task.) Running 10.4, it's also my go-to machine for any Classic apps. It's been a while since I've felt the need, though.

MacMadness said:

Here's a couple more pics of Computer based stereo porn. (a couple of the rooms utilize ipods for 44.100 Khz playback though wadia docks but that's a story for a different thread....

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What does this mean, thats what my home theater reciever say's when I hook the TOSLINK cable to it Digital 44.1Khz. I don't hear well enough to concern myself over audio quality so I'm just wondering.

Digital audio is not a continuous wave, but instead a stream of values which represent the amplitude of the wave at a specific time interval, just like how a video can be thought of as a series of discrete frames.

The more samples (snapshots of the wave) you have per second, the closer to a continuous wave it gets, meaning it is a more authentic representation of the original wave being recorded, and thus the better it sounds - similar I guess to how a video with a higher FPS looks more fluid.

44.1kHz is chosen as the sample rate because of a theory which states that the highest possible frequency you are able to represent is half that of the sampling frequency - so ~40kHz is chosen because it is double the upper hearing range of a human.

GermanyChris said:

What does this mean, thats what my home theater reciever say's when I hook the TOSLINK cable to it Digital 44.1Khz. I don't hear well enough to concern myself over audio quality so I'm just wondering.

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Without knowing what the source material is, 1411Khz (44.100 KHZ) is CD quality playback and the sample rate they are mastered at.

MP3's usually have sample rates of 128kbps, 256kbps, or 320kbps by comparison*.
*Corrections courtesy of Wildy

Do you not mean MP3s have 128 [...] bitrates?

SuperJudge said:

I'm down to just my iMac G5 at this point.

Mostly, I use it as a terminal for accessing my x86_64 Linux box and as a front end for my media server when I'm in my home office. It handles both of those jobs with aplomb since I don't have any HD content to stream.

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iMac G5s were known for failing! Watch out!

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Jessica Lares said:

I use my Power Mac G5 for the whole Creative Suite package, rendering 3D with Poser, Bryce, practicing Unity 3D, and I'm trying to get a copy of Autodesk Maya for PPC, so I can use it as my main machine as my MacBook Pro screen is too small. It renders really fast actually. Do a lot of coding on it too. I want to throw a copy of Logic on it too.

The iMac G4, I do some rendering on it too, but it's mainly my family's machine, and I usually just use one of the Bannister emulators to play Genesis ROMs when I'm not using the Xbox in the living room as the screen is awesome for that.

I'm planning on adding some authoring software to my clamshell too (running OS 9). Need to figure out just what though.

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Which version of the CS Suite are you using and what programming language do you work on? Thanks.

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JaguarGod said:

Well, I am saddened to say that the only PPC Macs I have left are my upgraded G4 Sawtooth and my G5 Quad. But both of them now are in storage. I cannot seem to get rid of the G4 because I love the way it looks. The color scheme and the tower along with the matching 15" LCD just look great together. As far as the G5, I want to use it for something, but what?

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Well, you could give it to me
Lol just jk

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ChrisMan287 said:

My PPC is my main computer. I use it for everything

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Why? PPC is getting outdated why use it as a main computer?

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seveej said:

I donated/loaned my old G4 PB (1 Ghz), 17" to my father. He's 80, and he does his correspondence and web stuff on it. He loves the big pixels.

My Dual MDD is working as a home server (file repository backup), which it does pretty well thanks to a SATA card and two huge drives.

I had a PMG5, but was annoyed by the simultaneous need for a PC workstation, so I sold both and got an iMac, which (thanks to bootcamp and parallels) ran both platforms.

Of all the Mac's I've had and sold, the only ones I really miss are a PBG4 12", that G5 and the first (and only) Alu Macbook.

RGDS,

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Aren't big pixels bad?

MacMadness said:

Without knowing what the source material is, 44.100Khz is CD quality playback and the sample rate they are mastered at.

MP3's usually have sample rates of 128, 256, or 320KHz by comparison.

Hope that helps.

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Movies mostly, DVD and BluRay Rips, as well as streaming it literally doesn't change no matter. If the source is either of my MP's it says the same thing. Thats why I asked..

Is it better than the 128, 256, or 320Khz ?

128, 256 etc. is the bitrate. It is the sample rate * how many bits each sample is made from and it is measured in kbps, not kHz.

The sample rate from Bluray should be much higher than 44.1k, so either the settings you used to rip it were incorrect, the output sample rate on your Mac pro is set to 44.1k (check in Audio MIDI setup and audio settings), or the receiver is incapable of playing anything back higher than 44.1k (very unlikely).

Wildy said:

128, 256 etc. is the bitrate. It is the sample rate * how many bits each sample is made from and it is measured in kbps, not kHz.

The sample rate from Bluray should be much higher than 44.1k, so either the settings you used to rip it were incorrect, the output sample rate on your Mac pro is set to 44.1k (check in Audio MIDI setup and audio settings), or the receiver is incapable of playing anything back higher than 44.1k (very unlikely).

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@Wildy

Thanks for the correction. I didn't mean to mix up bit rates (kpbs) and Sample rates (Khz).
Alot of things are is going on around here (in the middle of changing out/updating my Mac Pro to a newer one and I guess I was unintentionally speaking out of my arse.

I'm not knowledgeable about what the correct sample rates are for DVD's and Bluray since my focus is audio ripped from CD's and Vinyl.

I defer to you sir...

keremtezcan said:

iMac G5s were known for failing! Watch out!

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Considering that I have personally recapped the logic board and replaced the power-supply on it, I'm not too terribly worried about it.

Aren't big pixels bad?

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Some people obviously prefer not having high ppi, I currently own a laptop which has 15,4" screen and 1680 x 1050 resolution. All of my friends who have used it have complained "why is the text so small" like if I would have zoom settings on Firefox etc. Same thing most likely happens when people use retina MBPs. Average user is used to 1366 x 768 or 1280 x 800 resolution on 15" displays.

Wildy said:

128, 256 etc. is the bitrate. It is the sample rate * how many bits each sample is made from and it is measured in kbps, not kHz.

The sample rate from Bluray should be much higher than 44.1k, so either the settings you used to rip it were incorrect, the output sample rate on your Mac pro is set to 44.1k (check in Audio MIDI setup and audio settings), or the receiver is incapable of playing anything back higher than 44.1k (very unlikely).

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I changed it to 96Khz in the audio midi and it sounds better kinda. I'm going to try a .MKV BluRay rip tonight.

I'd like to add as a side note my Quads audio sounded better than either of my MP's

iMac G4, just to look cool, I'll use it when I need to run an old app in classic or just feel like it. I have it set up in my office on the desk, everyone that sees it immediately wants to buy it

Powerbook Kanga is used for AOL 3.0.. because all of the old stuff is still up, it's like entering a time machine.

Also have Powermac G5 dual 2.7 and dual 1.8s, which were used for video editing until they died back in 2010 and 2012

MisterKeeks said:

Have you tried the modified flash plugin or XBMC for I player, clicktoplugin for general browsing.

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I'd just assumed iPlayer was a no go... however I tried it out the other night and it's flawless in Webkit, TenFourFox and Stainless. Playing on the second monitor the CPU usage sits between 35%-50% which isn't bad at all all things considered - watching Blackadder as I type this

Running a late 2005 2.3 Dual G5.

GermanyChris said:

I changed it to 96Khz in the audio midi and it sounds better kinda. I'm going to try a .MKV BluRay rip tonight.

I'd like to add as a side note my Quads audio sounded better than either of my MP's

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Because our quads are not using Intel HDA chips I guess. My PB's analog audio output are warm sounding, full and pleasing to the ear, while my MB's are tinny, no matter how much I push the limits of the equalizer in iTunes.

Nameci said:

Because our quads are not using Intel HDA chips I guess. My PB's analog audio output are warm sounding, full and pleasing to the ear, while my MB's are tinny, no matter how much I push the limits of the equalizer in iTunes.

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All computer sound chips are rubbish, get speakers with a USB connection that take the raw audio file and process it on their own superior on board processor if you want real music system audio. Anything coming from an audio jack is crippled before it even hits your speaker cable.

wobegong said:

All computer sound chips are rubbish, get speakers with a USB connection that take the raw audio file and process it on their own superior on board processor if you want real music system audio. Anything coming from an audio jack is crippled before it even hits your speaker cable.

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I guess you are right, so it means you need to have an external DSP to convert USB audio to analog.

Aside from MM-1's do you have any speaker in mind that could connect directly to the PowerMacs USB port?

keremtezcan said:

Why? PPC is getting outdated why use it as a main computer?

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They are only 'outdated' because Apple made them so. Computers of the age should work fine, maybe not the latest OS, but certainly in support. If the computer does what the poster wants it to do without issue (like mine does), what is the point in buying a new one?

Nameci said:

I guess you are right, so it means you need to have an external DSP to convert USB audio to analog.

Aside from MM-1's do you have any speaker in mind that could connect directly to the PowerMacs USB port?

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There are a few, do a search for onboard processor, Creative did one (rubbish) and so did Bose when I got mine plus the Focal XS, maybe a few others but no not a huge selection if you want true audiophile quality from your computer But if you can get it then you have the worlds largest and most flexible music stack system all in a small box, complete with iPad/Phone remote and thousands of tracks on tap

I've got a cheap blue box from eBay with the C-MEDIA CM6206 chip in it, works great.

wobegong said:

Anything coming from an audio jack is crippled before it even hits your speaker cable.

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Perhaps, but only if you've got a really badass set of speakers. And you've absolutely got to be using high quality source audio, no torrented 320kbit stuff.

Jethryn Freyman said:

Perhaps, but only if you've got a really badass set of speakers. And you've absolutely got to be using high quality source audio, no torrented 320kbit stuff.

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The speakers are only as good as the audio data they receive, a true music solutuion will have a MUCH better sound processor than the one found in any computer (even a MAC...). Rubbish speakers you won't notice the diffeence but as you go up the sound scale you hear it EASILY...

320kbit is not necessarily torrented, and is irrelevant - it could be from a iTunes CD rip, music should be lossless ideally, otherwise whats the point of listening to it? A CD sounds much better than any kind of MP3/lossy codec, why trash all that sound you've paid for when you rip to get a 2/3 cut result? Disk space is the only valid argument here really (tied up with budget), otherwise as you can only LISTEN to music why deliberately sabotage that experience when you start off with high quality for "free" (CD)

roadbloc said:

They are only 'outdated' because Apple made them so. Computers of the age should work fine, maybe not the latest OS, but certainly in support. If the computer does what the poster wants it to do without issue (like mine does), what is the point in buying a new one?

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Don't feed the troll, he has posted many things like this.

I have a wonderful iBook G4 with 10.4.11 that I use for quite a lot of things.