Digital television on a old mac?

[didius]

Hi

I'm looking for a solution to this problem.

I'd like to use one of my old mac's (iMac G3, iBook G3, PowerBook G3, PowerBook Titanium G4) as a TV. I have been looking for Elgato DVB-T cards but i've read that those cards (and the software) would not work on these old macs. Does anyone know some way to watch tv on such a mac? (i'm not interested in HD : )

I still have a old Performa 5400 which i used to watch TV on. But about a year ago Belgium switched to DVB-T and my Performa is without any use.

 

[phreakout]

Didius,

If you are running System 7.5.x, Mac OS 8 or higher, you can use the Apple Video Player included in the installation disk for those Mac Operating Systems. Included with AVP is a file extension called Video Startup. That will need to be copied into the Extensions Folder while you copy/install AVP. You can find these in the Apple Extras folder on the installation disk. Bear in mind, though, that the framerate (fps) is quite low at about 15 frames per second. That is the limit. But it offers you several codecs to encode the video file. You can also do some minor editing to the content with the included software.

For example: I have a Power Mac 7500 with a Sonnet Crescendo G3 at 500Mhz, 224MB RAM and OS 9.1 with AVP installed. The PM7500 includes a set of audio/video jacks on the back. So all I do is attach a vcr, cable box, etc., to the rear of the 7500 and tune in to a station. I can watch the video at 24 frames per second, but capturing is much slower.

If you can't find AVP, let me know in a private message and I'll email the files to you.

If you are running Mac OS X 10.2 or higher, I recommend Elgato's EyeTV. Be sure you are using the USB EyeTV or the FireWire versions that exist. EyeTV, in my opinion, seems to be the easiest and most flexible to use. I can run on most of the PPC G3 Macs and they also have versions that work on the Intel-based Macs, too. I'd prefer this over AVP any day.

I hope this helps.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

I still have a old Performa 5400 which i used to watch TV on. But about a year ago Belgium switched to DVB-T and my Performa is without any use.

Haven't you got Digital->Analog Converter Boxes like we've got in the States? The 5400 should still work fine hooked up to one of those, I should think.

BTW, welcome to the 68kMLA! :approve:

 

[LCGuy]

I second jt's suggestion - here in Australia we use DVB-T as well, and digital boxes with Composite and S-Video out are readily available, and dirt cheap. I own such a device and have had it connected to my Performa, running through AVP, and like any other AV device, it just works, no trouble at all.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

To give a U.S.-based reply: :-D

No pre-Intel Mac will be able to handle direct decoding of the new "ATSC" digital TV signal. (Well, in theory a fast G4 or single G5 could handle the 480p broadcasts, but most 'primary' channels are 720p or 1080i, which EyeTV says a Dual G5 or Intel Core Duo is needed for. And, no, you can't just try to decode at 480p, the machine has to be fast enough to decode the native 1080i signal, no matter what resolution you're trying to display at.) So 'native' support is nonexistent for older machines. Not to mention that all ATSC-compatible tuning software requires at minimum 10.3. (And the latest version of EyeTV needs 10.4.11 or later.)

As others have said, you can use a converter box, though. These are the devices that the U.S. government was subsidizing last year, that, with the government coupon, you could get as cheap as $10. These decode the new ATSC signal, and output standard old fashioned (aka: "low-def") NTSC, either over coax (tune a TV tuner to channel 3,) or over composite (yellow-red-white cables.) From there, you can use any TV-input source to watch; you just use the converter box's remote control to change channels. (Yes, you can even watch on an old Macintosh TV this way. Or any other old Mac with composite inputs, like a beige G3 with "Wings" AV input card.)

 

[Scott Baret]

Are those boxes still available/going to be available in the near future? I'm up in the air about taking a TV set to an apartment whenever I move but it may be a good idea to have one on hand if I do take it (which I'd mostly do for my Wii) in case the wireless network was down and I needed to get, say, a weather report in a hurry (which I could do with TV). I wouldn't need cable (since I'll get MLB.TV for my baseball games) and rarely watch anything outside of the occasional game of Jeopardy on TV these days but my TV is older (and I can't justify spending money on a new one right now; I'd rather invest in some additional furniture instead).

My set, by the way, is a Sony 27" CRT from 2004, although I wouldn't mind a Macintosh TV if I wanted to downsize my TV and go retro while I'm at it (while sticking with a Sony display)...

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Are those boxes still available/going to be available in the near future? I'm up in the air about taking a TV set to an apartment whenever I move but it may be a good idea to have one on hand if I do take it (which I'd mostly do for my Wii) in case the wireless network was down and I needed to get, say, a weather report in a hurry (which I could do with TV). I wouldn't need cable (since I'll get MLB.TV for my baseball games) and rarely watch anything outside of the occasional game of Jeopardy on TV these days but my TV is older (and I can't justify spending money on a new one right now; I'd rather invest in some additional furniture instead).
My set, by the way, is a Sony 27" CRT from 2004, although I wouldn't mind a Macintosh TV if I wanted to downsize my TV and go retro while I'm at it (while sticking with a Sony display)...

The subsidy from the government is gone, but the boxes are still available (and will be for quite some time; people still need them, after all.) About $40 at Radio Shack (or similar.) But you could probably get a used HD tuner for your Mac for just a little more.

 

[phreakout]

This is my thought process. I could hang onto my Power Mac 7500 and connect it to the component A/V ports in the back of any digital convertor box. Then use AVP and open up a window to view the live signal. I know it can be done, one way or another.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

This is my thought process. I could hang onto my Power Mac 7500 and connect it to the component A/V ports in the back of any digital convertor box. Then use AVP and open up a window to view the live signal. I know it can be done, one way or another.

Not a very good thought process, IMHO. The 5400 is a FAR superior platform than the 7500 for importing/displaying analog video, IIRC.

The 7500 will be CPU bound trying to do the conversion and drive a video signal out, unless it has a nifty Copro/Analog->Digital converter DSP setup like the TV-Tuner Card in your 5400. As far as the 5400 is concerned, it's just throwing a blank screen up on the CRT and the Video Pixels are piped straight into the video buffer from the DSP on the Tuner card . . . as I understand it anyway.

Prove this by doing a screen shot with a normal or small sized AVP window open on the 5400's CRT . . . shazzam . . . blank box while the 5400's desktop captures perfectly! The other dead giveaway is that using AVP to do a "Screen Shot" of the Video signal takes a LOT of horsepower and time for the CPU to accomplish.

I could be wrong about everything though . . . it hapens! :-/

 

[Bunsen]

It'll still only be 320x240, upscaled to 640x480 if you're playing it fullscreen. The very best picture quality on older Macs is probably obtained with an 840AV and a Spigot Pro AV, or a PCI Mac and a PCI capture card of some sort. There are cards out there that can be had for cheap because they don't have OS X drivers; I forget names right now.