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setfan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 28, 2020
17
3
I have a Dual 2Ghz Power PC G5 with 1gb ram running Tiger OS 10.4.11, and use Tenfourfox as the browser. I just took out a Tidal trial offer, realising that while I cant download the Tidal app on my old machine, I thought I would be able to access the Tidal web player through Tenfourfox.

However, when I go to the Tidal web player, the screen stays blank as per picture below and freezes.

Any help or information about this please, and whether there is any way I can access the Tidal web player on my 10.4.11 Tiger OS?


1586952152365.png
 
Ah, thats not good to hear...I keep hearing the drums telling me its time for the G5 to move on, a shame as it sounds so good when streaming online FM, just not Tidal that I want!
 
Ah, thats not good to hear...I keep hearing the drums telling me its time for the G5 to move on, a shame as it sounds so good when streaming online FM, just not Tidal that I want!

I'm just trying a Lubuntu live disk...I'm not hopeful but will let you know...unless anyone who's already tried it chimes in?
 
Thanks, wont get my hopes up at all..but will be great news if it works :)
 
Thanks very much for trying! I also have an Intel Celeron NUC with Ubuntu installed with 4gb and an SSD, and it plays Tidal, Spotify, etc.

But the strange thing is the NUC sounds nowhere near as good as the G5 when streaming the same online FM stations at 128k AAC. Doesnt make sense, but maybe its the Ubuntu OS holding the NUC back...or just the beefier power supply and build of the G5.
 
I think you are right...hmm, this is all quite ironic - I feel like I am in no mans land between the two options I have! :oops::p
 
Thanks very much for trying! I also have an Intel Celeron NUC with Ubuntu installed with 4gb and an SSD, and it plays Tidal, Spotify, etc.

But the strange thing is the NUC sounds nowhere near as good as the G5 when streaming the same online FM stations at 128k AAC. Doesnt make sense, but maybe its the Ubuntu OS holding the NUC back...or just the beefier power supply and build of the G5.

I have both the PowerMac G5 and an Audioengine D1 USB DAC that I use with my Mini server and the G5 always sounded somewhat better than my Audioengine DAC due to its built-in DAC and the way Core Audio X handles outgoing audio.

For example, if audio data sampled from another computer or a stream is at a lower rate is played as output on the Power Mac G5, the Core Audio (Mac OS X’s OS Level Audio API) transparently up-samples the data to the currently set sampling frequency prior to sending the audio data to the sound circuitry. To maximize audio fidelity, the Core Audio samples are stored as 32-bit floating point.

Which is why I am still using the PowerMac G5 as an audio DAW system for audio editing and recording. It is still one of the best cheap system you buy for audio editing and penny pinching musicians.
 
Arrrghhhh, I dont really want to hear that!! Just kidding :p
But my ears agree with what you have explained...!!
 
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All is not lost. You can still stream Pandora with PianoPPC (pianobar), or icecast/shoutcast streams with Audion. If you install Leopard @Dronecatcher found a way to watch/listen to YouTube music as well. So there are still some streaming options available.

Cheers
 
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All is not lost. You can still stream Pandora with PianoPPC (pianobar), or icecast/shoutcast streams with Audion. If you install Leopard @Dronecatcher found a way to watch/listen to YouTube music as well. So there are still some streaming options available.

Cheers

Oh, the irony of it all! Got my hopes up about Pandora on the G5, but I should have mentioned that I am in Australia and sadly I discovered that Pandora withdrew from here around 5 years ago and is now solely available in the US..

However, it gave me an idea to search for more streamers, and I found that iHeart Radio is free so had a go.

I was getting excited when unlike Tidal, the iHeart page including all graphics quickly appeared! Success at last?!! DOH, it looks great to that point, but when I click the play button...nothing!! :-(

1587033136961.png
 
You can get further using Webkit on Leopard but unfortunately Tidal appears to use DRM - there's no PowerPC browser that has that enabled.


So my assumption is that maybe iHeart Radio uses DRM? Is that possibly why it wont play, like Tidal wont, on my G5, as opposed to something like Soma FM which streams perfectly at 128k AAC quality...??

So what type of stream file would Soma FM use, as that sounds like what I need to explore and hopefully find to be able to stream to my G5! Or maybe Soma is just "AAC' files, which is different to DRM? Apologies for likely some very ignorant questions here, but I am slowly learning!
 
So what type of stream file would Soma FM use, as that sounds like what I need to explore and hopefully find to be able to stream to my G5!

I think it's the norm now for streaming services to employ DRM outside of their standalone apps and no one has or is willing to code a browser add-on to enable it in PowerPC.
Soma FM has been around a very long time and thankfully still works on the lowest end Macs - even on OS9...let's hope that doesn't change.
 
You can get further using Webkit on Leopard but unfortunately Tidal appears to use DRM - there's no PowerPC browser that has that enabled.

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This is unfortunate. I got excited when I saw this thread at first, because I was going to test this myself. I have a Tidal subscription and I use it everyday. Mostly in my car, but occasionally in browser too. I was hoping I could run it on my eMac. Looks like that won't be happening.
 
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