[melbdean]

Hi, this is posted in the General Section also. Apol's if is out-of-order but as you will read, it is a bit of mish-mash. At the heart of it though is the G4. Will it or won't it?

I have 'inherited' a 400/768 g4 that has had a fantastic life in a music studio. and far from what i expected as a description of its ability/ history, the ex-owners sung its praises: a truly reliable work horse.
so this query is all about putting this g4 back to work rather than to death. it is currently running 3.9 but i have both tiger and leopard install disks available.

here is the dream ~
* the g4 is upgraded to the most appropriate OSX and acts as (theoretical) 24/7 ripping & compressing monster to assist me convert the 500-ish DVD's overflowing out of the cupboards. Mac the Ripper, DVD2oneX, Handbrake are the necessities. i currently have a work-flow that produces mp4's that play 5.1 on both atv and ps3, play stereo from the atv should it be connected directly to a TV and play in iTunes. it has taken me a year to get this right and unless someone has a more efficient, fool-proof method, i won't be changing it i.e. the g4 must be able to produce this finished mpeg file.
* as the g4 will be in the garage (saving our ears from the endless fan noise), also want it to run eyeTV. Possible? Problems? Upgrades required? Watching/ Recording TV whilst in the shed doing secret mens business is what it is all about.
* and as there isn't any hope of getting ethernet cable to the garage, is it possible to plug a WD MyBook World Edition 500Gb NAS into it and join the home network wirelessly? I can plug the MyBook into the ethernet socket of my MacBook running Leopard and it works perfectly. (but I dare not assume the same outcome from the g4!) the home network starts with a DLink G604Tgen2 hard-wired to a Time Capsule that provides the wireless network. if the TC will work with the g4 and the near perfect wireless delivery to the laptops, atv and ps3 isn't adversely effected by reinstating th DLink or using the MyBook NAS, i look forward to receiving advice.

understanding there are a few particular issues here, I will of course delve into the appropriate forums as required. I hoped that as a general proposition, this forum would be the best place to begin.

is it a dream on the verge of an attainable reality or a nightmare of epic proportions?

with thanks,

[decryption]

It will be horrible ripping DVDs to H264. Will take half a day to rip one movie.

Won't be fast enough to record HD content with EyeTV, check the minimum requirements on the Elgato website.

But is fine as a file server if you plug a Firewire HDD into it and share the drive out to your network.

[DagrtheSnide]

It's as fast as a super computer......

That's what the ad say so this G4 will be able to predit weather formations weeks in advance, you could also sell cpu cycles to third parties for profit, oh glorious times.

Joking

[melbdean]

Originally Posted by decryption

It will be horrible ripping DVDs to H264. Will take half a day to rip one movie.

Won't be fast enough to record HD content with EyeTV, check the minimum requirements on the Elgato website.

But is fine as a file server if you plug a Firewire HDD into it and share the drive out to your network.

thanks for prompt response.

ripped a DVD with MtR 2.6.6. last night and I was surprised at how quick it was. re your comment on h264 conversion, my 'good' mac is taking 3-5 hours to do a HB convert as it is. handbrake 9.2 used to fly but of course the converts were MPEG, not H264. and no 5.1. anyway, i can handle the time it takes coz i won't be in my face. just have to upgrade to tiger coz HB doesn't have 10.3 compatibility.
re EyeTV, can live without it.
re firwire HDD, i'm not 100% what you mean -how can it be shared without wireless?

thanks again.

[gikku]

Originally Posted by decryption

... fine as a file server ...

yep. i have a 366mhz G4 tiger performing similar ops.
iTunes music server
torrent box
can burn anything non-urgent, like back-up disks or vids to give friends/family next weekend.

I had it running folding@home for a while, just for a laugh. It would take a month to process one job that an intel core duo took 2 days on.

[Dog Knight]

The Eye TV wont be able to record due to speed issues. You may be able to view, but you will need to purchase a USB 2 card for the G4. The standard ports are USB 1 only.

This will also be handy for external storage if you don't want to use firewire. The machine uses IDE HD's and while they are a plenty that machine will only recognise up to 128gb without some fiddling. For example, you can put a 300gb HD in it, but it will only show up as 128gb and thats all you'll be able to use due to the HD controller I believe. Any Belkin USB cards (PCI) will work just fine in a G4 even though mac support is not listed. Any computer store should sell these.

You can attach it to your network easy via ethernet. It will work the same as any other machine. Obviously you can't run Leopard on it due to the CPU speed so there isn't any time machine functions but that isn't a big problem at all.

For ripping, I would probably recommend maxing out the RAM. While I cant rmember for sure I think 1.5gb is the max in that model. Someone correct me if im wrong.

Side note: I'd be interested in knowing the ripping process you use. Sounds like you have it automated as well. Would be quite handy. I have a spare 733 G4 I could set to work doing the same thing.

[advent]

Handbrake is hopeless. I have found it unreliable, you are better off spending thirty dollars or so on a converter that will convert at almost the same speed as the movie, (they normally will just show you the movie without sound, and when it finishes, the conversion should be done), I have been looking for something like this, cucusoft was more than fantastic on windows, but it could not run on mac. it is worth looking around for one.

[Brains]

Dog Knight's suggestion of a USB 2 PCI card won't help you with the video-ripping, as whilst you'll get speeds better than the onboard USB 1.1, you will strike the PCI bus' 33 Mhz bus speed limit.

For video ripping on that machine, you're going to need to buy a FireWire-based DV converter such as the Miglia or the Canopus ADVC. Not sure what you would use software-wise.

[Dog Knight]

USB 2 suggestion was more in regard to attaching external storage or using Eye TV for watching TV. I assumed for ripping he would be using the internal DVD drive.

[Lutze]

My ol' Cube did okay at DVD ripping. So it will certainly do that. Though I think that converting to H264 would be a nightmare (however if you can get one of the H264 converters then that would ease the pain).

Not sure if anyone has said - Your G4 is too low power for Leopard (though if you have a more powerful PowerPC Mac you could force it on, it will not run very well though).

May be relevant or not but it may be quicker to convert to AVI format - and then use a wrapper to fool iTunes etc (with Perian installed) into thinking it's an allowed format. I'm currently changing any AVI file with a script wrapper and it's loading stuff into iTunes / Apple TV (Perian hacked) without further conversion.

[datacenter]

I have a powermac G4 400mhz, it has a SATA card and 2 x 320gb SATA drives.

I basically spend an hour or so ripping a handful of DVD's on my powerbook & Macbook, move the DVD images to the Powermac, queue up the DVD's in Handbrake and leave it to rip, it takes about 1 day a dvd, but who cares, i don't use the powermac, it just sits there processing. every week or so i collect the files, whack em in itunes and blow away the DVD images. this keeps my powerbook and macbook to do all the work. My powerbook takes 4-5 hours to process a dvd in Hb anyways, so i find it easy to leave the powermac to do its stuff.. Apple Remote Desktop makes life easy to queue the Hb etc..

my powerbook died in the melb heat last week, won't boot anymore so i got an iMac 24" put aside which i hope to pickup this week, should improve my Hb processing form the old range of g4's i have!