[proenca]

Hi there,

I have a MacMini Intel Core Duo serving as a media center with PLEX and works like a treat.

Now I've been offered a pair of POWERMAC's 1.8ghz G5 for almost peanuts and I was thinking of using them media centers but PLEX doesnt support PPC so I found XBMC that might do the job ( or the other way around, the G5 might do the job ) .

So the questions is : a Powermac G5 1.8ghz ( single cpu ) with 1GB ram, its "beefy" enough to play 720p MKV's ? Or the computer wont handle that ?

One complaint I hear a lot about XBMC is that is a bit on the buggy side for the mac - has the things ironed out a bit ? Or still not very stable ?

Anyone out there using a old PM G5 for this ? How its working ?

One thing that might be much better would be using transconding from a DLNA server or UPnP server to the PowerMac G5 : I already own a MacPRO eight core that could do it.. would that help the G5's ? My problem with this is that would put a bit of workload on the MacPRO and I use it heavily for v-e-r-y large photo so I wouldnt want to be working on a 30 x photo stich that came from single 18mp files and then everything start to crawls because the wife start to watch a Grey Anatomy episode on the G5 on the bedroom.

Is the G5 powerfull enough for this? Or should I just buy one to use a dedicated file server ?

[davilla]

Hi there,

I have a MacMini Intel Core Duo serving as a media center with PLEX and works like a treat.

Now I've been offered a pair of POWERMAC's 1.8ghz G5 for almost peanuts and I was thinking of using them media centers but PLEX doesnt support PPC so I found XBMC that might do the job ( or the other way around, the G5 might do the job ) .

So the questions is : a Powermac G5 1.8ghz ( single cpu ) with 1GB ram, its "beefy" enough to play 720p MKV's ? Or the computer wont handle that ?

One complaint I hear a lot about XBMC is that is a bit on the buggy side for the mac - has the things ironed out a bit ? Or still not very stable ?

Anyone out there using a old PM G5 for this ? How its working ?

One thing that might be much better would be using transconding from a DLNA server or UPnP server to the PowerMac G5 : I already own a MacPRO eight core that could do it.. would that help the G5's ? My problem with this is that would put a bit of workload on the MacPRO and I use it heavily for v-e-r-y large photo so I wouldnt want to be working on a 30 x photo stich that came from single 18mp files and then everything start to crawls because the wife start to watch a Grey Anatomy episode on the G5 on the bedroom.

Is the G5 powerfull enough for this? Or should I just buy one to use a dedicated file server ?

"One complaint I hear a lot about XBMC is that is a bit on the buggy side for the mac?" Not from XBMC devs or users

Single core Powermac G5 1.8ghz, maybe. Much faster bus than the PPC macmini, faster cpu too. Possible. There's PPC nightly builds at http://mirrors.xbmc.org/nightlies/osx/ppc as well as the Camelot PPC release.

[tuckbodi]

"One complaint I hear a lot about XBMC is that is a bit on the buggy side for the mac?" Not from XBMC devs or users

Yeah, I gotta agree. I'm continually amazed on how well XBMC runs, even the versions in development (svn nightlies).

[RckStr]

Gotta agree with davilla and tuckbodi here. There was a time though, that I felt sorry for windows users forced to use XBMC while I myself could use Plex. But since switching to XBMC for mac I really havent looked back. Camelot is easily preferable to Plex 0.8.5. It runs fantastic now and has an amazing comunity.

You have nothing to worry about.

[proenca]

To be fairly honest, Im surprised at XBMC : I installed in two machines ( main media center and my laptop ) and the scrapper worked without problems, series the same... really fanastic stuff, watched couple of movies and one series without a problem and all this over WiFi : Plex had def some problems here and it maybe me but lower definition content plays much better , as it looks better - much much less jaggy, seems that XBMC applies some sort of anti aliasing filter... I've been watching House Series 6 on my bedroom and since its recent, there's no HD content - so I watched a few with the wife and yesterday a couple with the wife but in xbMC and she said "oh you got the HD versions already, thank god ". it is noticable.


Now my worries is will it work in a Powermac G5 for 720p content ? that would be the charm....

[interceptor121]

An 1.8Ghz machine is more than enough to play 720p content even high profile with XBMC

[BlackstarBSP]

Hi there,

I have a MacMini Intel Core Duo serving as a media center with PLEX and works like a treat.

Now I've been offered a pair of POWERMAC's 1.8ghz G5 for almost peanuts and I was thinking of using them media centers but PLEX doesnt support PPC so I found XBMC that might do the job ( or the other way around, the G5 might do the job ) .

So the questions is : a Powermac G5 1.8ghz ( single cpu ) with 1GB ram, its "beefy" enough to play 720p MKV's ? Or the computer wont handle that ?

One complaint I hear a lot about XBMC is that is a bit on the buggy side for the mac - has the things ironed out a bit ? Or still not very stable ?

Anyone out there using a old PM G5 for this ? How its working ?

One thing that might be much better would be using transconding from a DLNA server or UPnP server to the PowerMac G5 : I already own a MacPRO eight core that could do it.. would that help the G5's ? My problem with this is that would put a bit of workload on the MacPRO and I use it heavily for v-e-r-y large photo so I wouldnt want to be working on a 30 x photo stich that came from single 18mp files and then everything start to crawls because the wife start to watch a Grey Anatomy episode on the G5 on the bedroom.

Is the G5 powerfull enough for this? Or should I just buy one to use a dedicated file server ?

Personally, I would not be a big fan of using older G5 towers as media centers. They are big, loud, weigh a metric-@#$%-ton... did I mention they were big? :p They only have space for 2 internal HD drives unless you get a mod-kit or pull the DVD drive. (Which I have worked on personally with many machines and can be a pain). The older PPC's are not going to be supported much longer, max level Mac OS is 10.5.8 so they have built in time limit of use, they use far more power than other systems with more performance... and so on. But hey, that's just me.

The single core 1.8 G5's got a geekbench score of about 1000. The dual's got about a 1500. The intel mini's today get an average score of about 2800 to 3200. That's a big difference for a machine that pretty much are worth about the same. Only real reason to get the tower is because you need PCI slot expansion.

But depending on your intension beyond XBMC you may find them useful or may be able to unload them to someone else for a profit. I'm curious though, is there a reason the person selling them won't let you (or him) install XBMC on them and test out some videos first?

As for file serving, the lack of drive space means either modding or going to external drives. :confused2: I had been using a dual processor G4 450MHz with gigabit and recently upgraded to a G4 1.25 GHz with gigabit. Both have worked flawlessly and I have noticed no performance difference in file hosting between them; which does not need any real CPU use anyway. It streams to 3 xboxes, 3 intel mac mini's and one intel macbook. The newer machine just has better drive placement and internal cooling. (average 24C - 35C drive temps now).

So for serving you don't need a fast machine at all, even when serving multiple HD streams at the same time; it just helps to have one with room to expand and the G5's don't really fit that bill either. At it's max stock capacity by pulling the DVD drive's, you'd have 3 bays (possibly 4 if you cram them) so that gives you a max 6 to 8 TB if you go with all 2TB drives.

Not sure how much 'peanuts' is, but you can get multi bay RAID or NAS enclosures for a few hundred that have far more room for expansion would use far less power, would be less noisy for only a few hundred dollars.

Either way, I'd ask the seller to test out, or let you test XBMC out on the machines before you commit to anything. Plus with the Boxee box and other silent hardware player solutions coming this year, you may find exactly what you need coming out soon anyway.

[davilla]

TeamXBMC would be interested in these G5s if you are not. Our PPC buildbot is a dual 500MHz G4 and it would be nice to get some more ponies for the PPC buildbot.

[garyi]

Coming from a pace where money was tight I can understand the attraction to these old macs. And in reality they are only a few years old.

But the reality is they are a square mile behind even bog standard intels.

I have an intel core duo 1.6 mini which my son uses and it runs mosts things a 4 year old could want, FLASH on the BBC, Kid Zui etc.

I purchased a 1.6 G5 imac and it was perceptly half as fast, FLASH was near impossible, clicking the mouse doing anything was measurably slower.

IMO a 1.8 G5 is going to be shit. More over its large, and its not quiet. Yes quieter than PCs but once that bottom fan gets going its noisy, and further more the little fans on the power supply have a tendency to whine. And the space for harddrives is broadly pointless and as soon as you add a second the fans ramp up even more.

For my money, second hand intel mini all the way.