Ok, so I have a PC that I'm pulling out of the mix (semi retiring)...
It's lived a long productive life, and it's only being retired due to one website it has trouble with (flash based)...
Otherwise, while certainly not my daily machine, it has remained fairly useful for the purpose it had.
To this point, my Mac Pro has doubled as my primary machine, and my iTunes sharing machine for my Apple TV's.
I have 3 Apple TV 3rd generation units running 3 TV's in the house.
I have never liked the Mac Pro being used for this purpose, because that machine ideally needs sandboxed and entirely of the internet and any networks. Not getting into the reason.... Essentially it is of critical security.
The Mac Pro holds data that cannot be risked, either by compromise or by loss.
So, as such, the iTunes library needs offloaded to another machine, and the Mac Pro needs off of all networks.
Since I am retiring this other PC from its prior purpose, it seems logical to consider it as a dedicated purpose media streaming device.
The computer has an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ running at 2.2 Ghz with 2 GB of RAM. It is configured to dual boot Windows XP Home and Windows Vista Ultimate.
It will be configured to be using either it's built-in crappy integrated video controller, or perhaps I'll put in an ATI AGP card I have.
My thought is that this computer will not be used to play any videos directly. I only intend to load iTunes on it, copy my library of music and movies over to it, and share the library with my Apple TV's like I currently do.
The videos will be a mix of MP4's created from DVD's using Handbrake, in high profile mode. And also some standard and high definition movies purchased through the iTunes Store.
Before I waste the time to do all the work, I thought I'd see what other people's experience has been in this area with similar spec machines.
Again, I am certain that I do not need to play any videos directly on this PC. It would only be used to feed the Apple TV's (3 of them) all 3rd generation. Typically only 1 TV is in use at a time. Extremely rarely, perhaps 2 of them.
The sharing would occur over the same hard wired network I'm using now without problem.
Thoughts on whether the video will play fine on the Apple TV's with this 2.2 GHz Athlon XP 3200+ Supplying the stream?
Any technical, performance, decoding, etc. issues foreseen?
Experiences?
Appreciate your thought....
It's lived a long productive life, and it's only being retired due to one website it has trouble with (flash based)...
Otherwise, while certainly not my daily machine, it has remained fairly useful for the purpose it had.
To this point, my Mac Pro has doubled as my primary machine, and my iTunes sharing machine for my Apple TV's.
I have 3 Apple TV 3rd generation units running 3 TV's in the house.
I have never liked the Mac Pro being used for this purpose, because that machine ideally needs sandboxed and entirely of the internet and any networks. Not getting into the reason.... Essentially it is of critical security.
The Mac Pro holds data that cannot be risked, either by compromise or by loss.
So, as such, the iTunes library needs offloaded to another machine, and the Mac Pro needs off of all networks.
Since I am retiring this other PC from its prior purpose, it seems logical to consider it as a dedicated purpose media streaming device.
The computer has an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ running at 2.2 Ghz with 2 GB of RAM. It is configured to dual boot Windows XP Home and Windows Vista Ultimate.
It will be configured to be using either it's built-in crappy integrated video controller, or perhaps I'll put in an ATI AGP card I have.
My thought is that this computer will not be used to play any videos directly. I only intend to load iTunes on it, copy my library of music and movies over to it, and share the library with my Apple TV's like I currently do.
The videos will be a mix of MP4's created from DVD's using Handbrake, in high profile mode. And also some standard and high definition movies purchased through the iTunes Store.
Before I waste the time to do all the work, I thought I'd see what other people's experience has been in this area with similar spec machines.
Again, I am certain that I do not need to play any videos directly on this PC. It would only be used to feed the Apple TV's (3 of them) all 3rd generation. Typically only 1 TV is in use at a time. Extremely rarely, perhaps 2 of them.
The sharing would occur over the same hard wired network I'm using now without problem.
Thoughts on whether the video will play fine on the Apple TV's with this 2.2 GHz Athlon XP 3200+ Supplying the stream?
Any technical, performance, decoding, etc. issues foreseen?
Experiences?
Appreciate your thought....