G4 Media Server?

[natebookpro]

I am looking to pick up an old Power Mac G4 and use it as a media server. Right now I have a 1.6 AMD Athlon doing this running Windows XP. I will only be using this to stream movies to my tv. The Athlon does perfectly fine, but a few hundred bucks is worth getting windows entirely out of my house.

I want to make sure to pick up one of the Power Macs that can address a drive larger than 128gb, which I believe puts me at about an 800mhz G4.

My question is... Who else is using a G4 as a media server to stream videos over to their tv? If you do have a setup like this how well is it running and please post the specs. Thanks for your help.

 

[natebookpro]

anybody?

 

[TrapOx]

Any computer with a hard drive and an Ethernet port can do it. Even a 350mhz G4 with a $20 SATA card will work fine.

 

[Hrududu]

I actually don't have a Mac setup as media server, but I guess I'd just reccomend making sure if you buy Quicksilver G4, make sure its a 2002 model and not one of the originals. The older ones don't have the large drive support. You probably already know that, but I thought I'd toss it out there just in case.

 

[Shownarou]

I haven't tried using my G4 as a media server, but I do know that if the computer doesn't have 128gb+ support, you can use a PCI ide or sata controller so that you can get that support.

 

[kellen]

I would be worried about the wireless. Aren't those airport cards b/g ? Is that going to be good enough for the apple tv?

Try the server forum, couple people talking about setting up powermac G4 servers.

 

[Shownarou]

I can attest to the airport cards being very slow. Read/write times on the stock ide connectors are very slow as well.

 

[SASouth]

-snip
My question is... Who else is using a G4 as a media server to stream videos over to their tv? If you do have a setup like this how well is it running and please post the specs. Thanks for your help.

I'm using a PowerMac G4 Digital Audio as a media server and it works great! It used to be my daughter's computer before I upgraded her to an Intel iMac.

Back when she was using it as her main computer I put in a 1.4 GHz. processor upgrade, a USB 2.0 card and installed 768MB of RAM. Other than that, it is stock. I don't think that the processor upgrade was really necessary, but since I had it already installed I used it.

When I went to turn the computer into a media server I bought a 1TB external USB drive instead of a new SATA card and hard drive. I did it this way mainly because I already had the USB 2.0 card installed and the external HD was on sale pretty cheap.

I'm using the gigabit Ethernet port on the Digital Audio to connect it to my network. The TV is using 802.11g to connect to my network. Streaming wirelessly to the TV works great!

Hope this helps.

 

[mscriv]

I have just converted a G4 MDD into a home media server. I don't have an TV, but I stream content to my PS3, mainly movies. My thread is in the server section. To avoid repeating here's a link. It's running well so far. I stream wirelessly through my iMac with an AEBS at G speeds. The only reason I have to go through the iMac is because the G4 MDD does not have a wireless card installed. I'm considering running a network connection into our living room. Then I could simply hard wire. Streaming works great for most of my content, but sometimes with HD stuff I get a little stutter. This could be more of a PS3 thing rather than a wireless issue. The best way to get your specific TV questions answered would be to ask in that forum. If you have other questions about the G4 server then just let me know. In all honesty, creating a home server comes down to your budget and your specific goals. Good luck and let me know if I can be of any help.

 

[natebookpro]

Thanks for all the replies guys! As for wireless being too slow, it will be hooked into the time capsule through ethernet so im not too worried about that. I will probably end up picking one up once the money allows for it. Thanks for the links to the server forums, I will need to read into that a bit. Once again thanks everyone, you all are great!