Power Macintosh 6500/250 - A/V mirroring?

[loubengal]

Hi all! Please forgive me if this is the wrong forum for this question - I'm new to the world of classic computers and I'll take any direction or advice i can get.

My dad just gifted me the Power Macintosh 6500/250 (OS 9.1) that I grew up with. It still works great! I want to try to figure out how to get the audio and video feed mirrored (via emulator or otherwise) onto my current Windows PC so that I can stream gameplay on Twitch.

Do yall know of any way to get the A/V from my Power Mac onto my current computer? If it helps, I also have a Macbook but I would prefer to stream on my Windows PC as the Macbook tends to overheat. The Power Mac seems to use an HDMI port (or something very similar looking) for video output.

Thanks!

 

[Phipli]

Hi all! Please forgive me if this is the wrong forum for this question - I'm new to the world of classic computers and I'll take any direction or advice i can get.

My dad just gifted me the Power Macintosh 6500/250 (OS 9.1) that I grew up with. It still works great! I want to try to figure out how to get the audio and video feed mirrored (via emulator or otherwise) onto my current Windows PC so that I can stream gameplay on Twitch.

Do yall know of any way to get the A/V from my Power Mac onto my current computer? If it helps, I also have a Macbook but I would prefer to stream on my Windows PC as the Macbook tends to overheat. The Power Mac seems to use an HDMI port (or something very similar looking) for video output.

Thanks!

There won't be a HDMI port on a 6500. You'll probably need a mac to vga adapter and then a USB VGA video capture thingy.

 

[mikes-macs]

I want to try to figure out how to get the audio and video feed mirrored (via emulator or otherwise) onto my current Windows PC so that I can stream gameplay on Twitch.

This is the correct forum but I don't really think you're going to have good luck with the quality of the video doing this on a PM 6500 as it has a slow bus and limited expansion.
PCI Firewire comes to mind with the many Firewire to Composite, Component, S Video, audio capture options. Perhaps a Network solution as well but I can't think of any.
I'm kind of curious which port you think is HDMI. I don't believe HDMI existed during the 1990s when the PM 6500 was released.

 

[loubengal]

There won't be a HDMI port on a 6500. You'll probably need a mac to vga adapter and then a USB VGA video capture thingy.

I mixed up my names, its definitely a VGA

 

[loubengal]

This is the correct forum but I don't really think you're going to have good luck with the quality of the video doing this on a PM 6500 as it has a slow bus and limited expansion.
PCI Firewire comes to mind with the many Firewire to Composite, Component, S Video, audio capture options. Perhaps a Network solution as well but I can't think of any.
I'm kind of curious which port you think is HDMI. I don't believe HDMI existed during the 1990s when the PM 6500 was released.

I definitely hecked up the port names, it's a VGA port, not HDMI.
I've never used a firewire port but I'm going to do some research! If I was able to work something out, would the slow bus make for a low frame rate or low resolution?

 

[mikes-macs]

I would say yes it would have a certain degree of affect on frame rate but I’m unsure exactly how much. Since there’s a vga card installed and the 6500 has two pci slots you may be able to install a FireWire card. You’ll need the FireWire software.

 

[Phipli]

I'm a little confused.

I'm not sure what use FireWire is here, and I'm guessing what you think is VGA, isn't VGA - the 6500 doesn't have VGA by default, but you can use an adapter to connect VGA devices.

What are you wanting to do exactly? Your phrasing is a little confusing, but I thought you wanted to play old games on the 6500, while capturing the action and streaming it to Twitch with a modern computer?

 

[avadondragon]

Definitely some confusion going on. While the A/V ports on a 6500 would be inputs if it has them I don't think the OP cares about doing the capturing ON the 6500. They want to capture the output of the 6500 on a modern machine. Firewire isn't going to be helpful for that.

As mentioned you're going to need a Mac DB15 to VGA HD15 Adapter. Then you are going to have to decide how much you're willing to spend and research which video capture devices will work for you. Your least expensive option will probably be to get a VGA to HDMI converter and pick up a cheap HDMI video capture device. While you can get a video capture device that supports VGA directly they are significantly more expensive usually. I don't know what kind of display you're planning on using but I assume you'll also want to get a splitter or find a capture device with a pass through.

Oh also this should be in the: PCI Power Mac & Performa forum.

 

[treellama]

Another way is to get a PCI Radeon 7000 with DVI and put it into a PCI slot on the 6500. Then use a DVI to HDMI cable and a cheap HDMI capture stick. I’ve been able to capture the screen this way

 

[mikes-macs]

Sorry for the confusion, you're right there has never been anyway to capture video and audio thru firewire.

 

[Phipli]

Sorry for the confusion, you're right there has never been anyway to capture video and audio thru firewire.

Well, not sure if you're being sarcastic, but there is, but they aren't trying to capture to a machine with firewire.

They're trying to stream the monitor output from a beige mac into a modern Windows PC.

 

[mikes-macs]

I was going to suggest one of these things next if he could find a Firewire Card for the Power Mac. But I think the DVI to HDMI solution is better since it's the monitor output they want captured. Again, sorry for the confusion I though it was recorded video. I have one of these and I've been able to capture screens but I have a special driver that outputs the monitor video and audio thru firewire on my Mac Mini to just about anything. I'm not entirely sure a PM6500 in Mac OS 9 can do it anyway.