Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Dedicated G4 for iTunes streaming to Apple TV?

A

aced411

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 2, 2007
380
92
The hard drive died on my 11 month old imac. Fortunately it was still under warranty. I attribute the failure to handbraking movies 24/7 and disabling sleep (for streaming to apple TV). The hard drive was spinning non stop. This got me to thinking..... it would be cool to pick up an old G4 tower dedicated for itunes and streaming. That way if the hard drive crashes, I can just swap it out easily with another. My question is can it handle it? Say I have a 720p movie. Will the G4 choke streaming it to the Apple TV? I can get a 1Ghz for like $100.

I'm sure it wouldn't be ideal for handbrake, but once we're done with our movie collection we don't planning on doing it very often.
 
aced411 said:
The hard drive died on my 11 month old imac. Fortunately it was still under warranty. I attribute the failure to handbraking movies 24/7 and disabling sleep (for streaming to apple TV). The hard drive was spinning non stop. This got me to thinking..... it would be cool to pick up an old G4 tower dedicated for itunes and streaming. That way if the hard drive crashes, I can just swap it out easily with another. My question is can it handle it? Say I have a 720p movie. Will the G4 choke streaming it to the Apple TV? I can get a 1Ghz for like $100.

I'm sure it wouldn't be ideal for handbrake, but once we're done with our movie collection we don't planning on doing it very often.
Click to expand...

I have a Powermac G4 dual 867 w/ 1.25gb ram and it works fine for HD tv shows from iTunes. For a 100 bucks I'd give it a shot...
 
hmmm

Thanks, although I'm willing to bet dual 867mhz is quite a bit faster than a single 1ghz
 
For streaming files to another device cpu power is not that important because the the cpu isn't playing or decoding the file all its doing is sending it across the network, it`s the device on the other end eg the AppleTV that does all the heavy decoding and playing of the file.

I`ve used my 1Ghz Atom netbook to stream HD content to my AppleTV and the cpu usage hardly moves. Most network storage devices have really low spec processors because the processor hardly gets used, it`s all about the network speed. As long as it meets the minimum specs for iTunes to run (don`t worry about iTunes being able to play the files because it will never have to) I can't see a problem.
 
Yeah

I figured, but just making sure. Thanks I'll probably give it a shot
 
Ha

Ended up finding a dual 1ghz tower and apple lcd for only $145 (ok, shipping jacked the price up a but). Should get it in about a week.
 
aced411 said:
Ended up finding a dual 1ghz tower and apple lcd for only $145 (ok, shipping jacked the price up a but). Should get it in about a week.
Click to expand...

Excellent. I found a dual 1 GHz that wouldn't start for $100 shipped once. I didn't get it because I was offered a 733 MHz Digital Audio for free.
 
I have a 400 Mhz G4 PowerMac doing my streaming... it can't even play the movies on the computer, but streams them to the :apple:TV just fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back