Eventually use an iMac as both a slave DAW and an external monitor?

[Ravich]

Hey everyone. I am wondering what kind of expenses/hardware this sort of setup might take. I am trying to stop myself from waiting any longer on getting myself a new machine (my mid 2008 MBP just isnt cutting it), and I am looking at the possibility of an iMac instead of paying for a 2009 Mac Pro.

While an iMac is certainly lacking in the important area of HDD expansion, I am wondering what it would take to have my iMac eventually set up as a slave in addition to serving as the monitor to a future mac pro, as this would make the purchase of a current i7 iMac and then installing an additional HDD myself much more logical.

I have done some reading on networking, but I am still unclear on the ideal method of getting audio back from slave and whether an iMac would be capable of that or what limiting factors might be.

 

[Ravich]

I just going to assume that this isnt a possibility due to the lack of PCI expansion for iMacs. I havent gotten responses to this question anywhere I've asked, but based on what I've been able to find out, it isnt an option with just FW800.

 

[qbradley]

what are the specs of the iMac and what specific tasks would the slave DAW perform? there are a few different ways to approach this.

As far as the iMac as a second monitor, there is software that can send the video signal on one machine over a gigabit network and have another machine serve as a 2nd monitor. I've seen it in the PC world and I believe this is what is out there for macs:
http://www.screenrecycler.com/ScreenRecycler.html

hope this helps!

 

[Jess21]

As far as the iMac as a second monitor, there is software that can send the video signal on one machine over a gigabit network and have another machine serve as a 2nd monitor. I've seen it in the PC world and I believe this is what is out there for macs:
http://www.screenrecycler.com/ScreenRecycler.html

hope this helps!

Thanks for the helpful info on Screenrecycler. This might be just what I need to make use of my hardly used iMac screen.

Jess

 

[joelbrandon]

Hi all - not sure if this thread is still open but I am trying to do a similar thing. I am trying to slave an iMac Intel 2.16 (Late 2006) to an iMac 27in (Sept 2010), and also use the old iMac as a secondary display. I see that Screen Recycler does the trick for the display, but how do you slave an iMac to an iMac? I want to do this primarily for Logic 9 usage for film scoring, with loads of samples (luckily I have 16 GB RAM in the 27in iMac).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Peace

- Joel