eMac - Media Center?

snollup

Hi all,

I have been given an old eMac by a friend & was thinking of what I might do with it. The thought of setting it up as a central media center/server is quite appealing. The machine has fairly low RAM & HD by todays standards. I havent fired it up yet but I understand that it would would be a powerPC.

I'm wondering if anybody has done this before? Can anyone recommend any how to vids on doing this?

I would hope to store all media on an external HD and upgrade the RAM. Will look into upgrading the OS to Leopard (if it will take it).

Anyho, any pointers/advise greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
S.

Fysh

TBH if you're looking at an eMac your max RAM is going to be 1 or 2GB, so I would try to minimise the OS load if media centre stuff is what you're after. It would be worth looking into whether something like MintPPC might be a better platform for your intended use than either Tiger or Leopard.

Also, I'd say go for Firewire external HDs if you can get them - FW is built on sustainable transfer rates while USB is based around "bursting" (so in practice FW will be faster for large files than USB2).

ZENER

Definitely going to need FireWire ! The old eMac only possessed USB1 ports so any transfers will be painfully slow !

I use an old PowerBook 17" G4 as a media center for music controlled by an iPod Touch and an iPad. Transferring files via USB is a big no no ! FireWire all the way

Ken

snollup

ZENER wrote: »

Definitely going to need FireWire ! The old eMac only possessed USB1 ports so any transfers will be painfully slow !

I use an old PowerBook 17" G4 as a media center for music controlled by an iPod Touch and an iPad. Transferring files via USB is a big no no ! FireWire all the way

Ken

Hey Zener, how do you connect your ipod/ipad via FireWire?

ZENER

The Firewire drive is connected directly to the Powerbook. I use the Remote app on the iPod and the iPad to control iTunes on the Powerbook. All the devices are connected via Wi-Fi !

Ken