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Streaming movies- G5 (w/ Leopard, for free) vs. Mac Pro (w/ Snow Leopard, not free)

ra4oasis

ra4oasis

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 10, 2010
356
84
Help me make a decision here. I have access to an old G5, with a gig of RAM, that I could put Leopard on, and throw a couple of huge hard drives in to store movies, and then stream them to an Apple TV. I could upgrade the RAM too. The G5 is free, and I already own Leopard.

The other option is saving enough money to buy a Intel Mac Pro, and put Snow Leopard (and later Lion) on it, and also stream movies to an Apple TV. This would be the better option, since its more powerful, and upgradeable to Lion, but it costs a LOT more than the G5.

Could I get away with iTunes, a upgraded G5, and an Apple TV to stream movies to my TV? Or should I just bite the bullet, save, and get an Intel machine?
 
The G5 should be just fine, you don't need a lot of processing power to stream files... A G4 mini could do that task...
 
I think that a newer Mac Pro is probably overkill unless you plan on running captures and conversions at the same time that you stream to several clients at once. A Mac mini should be sufficient; so the G5 Mac Pro should be fine. As with anything, max out the RAM and you should be good.
 
The G5 is free and will do the job. The Mac Pro is $2500 and won't stream any better.

This is the biggest no-brainer in the history of no-brainers. Get the Mac Pro. :D
 
Is noise or power consumption a concern? It's my understanding that the G5s are really loud and power hungry (or at least the processors ran so hot they needed that fancy liquid cooling; I assume that means they draw a lot of power).

I don't understand why the two choices are a free G5 and an expensive MacPro. Why not consider a new Mac Mini or iMac? Much cheaper than a MapPro and lacking many of the concerns of an old machine like a G5. If it's the hard drive bays, you can always use external.
 
mchalebk said:
I don't understand why the two choices are a free G5 and an expensive MacPro. Why not consider a new Mac Mini or iMac? Much cheaper than a MapPro and lacking many of the concerns of an old machine like a G5. If it's the hard drive bays, you can always use external.
Click to expand...

It sounds like drive capacity is a concern (which could make sense for things like Bluray rips.) Although I'd suggest a NAS for this instead of a whole tower.

Now if AppleTV could stream directly from a NAS someday that would be shiny.

Edit: Actually, I know of several NAS's which can act as iTunes servers, but dunno if they do video.
 
Just keep in mind the non-Intel chip could cause problems with compatibility, depending on what you're trying to stream.

Netflix, for example, will not let you stream movies without an Intel chip. It's a total pain, and very frustrating to have such a powerful computer that is rendered useless many times by lack of upgrades to software like that.

-Afrowq
Six Year PowerMac G5 User (and counting)
 
afrowq said:
Just keep in mind the non-Intel chip could cause problems with compatibility, depending on what you're trying to stream.

Netflix, for example, will not let you stream movies without an Intel chip. It's a total pain, and very frustrating to have such a powerful computer that is rendered useless many times by lack of upgrades to software like that.

-Afrowq
Six Year PowerMac G5 User (and counting)
Click to expand...

Sounds like he just needs to stream files off of disk to elsewhere, so it should be fine... but yeah, I thought of that too.
 
afrowq said:
Just keep in mind the non-Intel chip could cause problems with compatibility, depending on what you're trying to stream.

Netflix, for example, will not let you stream movies without an Intel chip. It's a total pain, and very frustrating to have such a powerful computer that is rendered useless many times by lack of upgrades to software like that.
Click to expand...

The same is actually true for the new Apple TV which requires an iTunes that does not run on PPC Macs. Pity.
The old ATV should be fine, though.

Still, for the old ATV and general file sharing, the PPC will do fine, especially for free. There is little point in not trying it for that price. :p
 
I have a G4 MDD as my media storage/ casual use computer. Its LOUD and that is my only dislike of it. If your just streaming you don't need a lot of power. I did a test with two xbox 360s streaming the same movie over a 100Mb wired network and had no problems. If you watch the network traffic the xbox 360s were only grabbing a few MBs every few seconds so there wasn't much network traffic going on. I assume it would be the same for the ATV/2.

I would go with the G5. I would only buy a mac pro for media storage if I was doing video rendering as well.
 
cantthinkofone said:
I have a G4 MDD as my media storage/ casual use computer. Its LOUD and that is my only dislike of it. If your just streaming you don't need a lot of power. I did a test with two xbox 360s streaming the same movie over a 100Mb wired network and had no problems. If you watch the network traffic the xbox 360s were only grabbing a few MBs every few seconds so there wasn't much network traffic going on. I assume it would be the same for the ATV/2.

I would go with the G5. I would only buy a mac pro for media storage if I was doing video rendering as well.
Click to expand...

I have a MDD G4 1.25 DP that I'm restoring. That's my only complaint, those suckers were LOUD. Dunno if mine has the replacement power supply though.
 
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