[mythtv-users] iMac as possible Frontend?

[Brian Wood]

On Mar 7, 2008, at 12:48 PM, Mark J. Small wrote:

> Would a 700 MHz imac be  fast enough for an SD only frontend?
>
> My living room frontend is a 733 MHz Pentium III and is perfectly  
> acceptable,
> but I know that processor speeds don't mean very much when crossing
> architectures.

If you mean a G4 iMac (the LCD monitor screen on a stalk coming up  
from a hemisphere) it should be OK, not sure about a G3 iMac (the CRT  
units, which lack the altivec) .

Often the supplied software can play DVDs, but it's highly optimized  
code, OSS code may not be quite as efficient.

I think the PPCs are generally more powerful for a given clock speed,  
especially with the altivec, as far as multimedia stuff, but more code  
development for OSS software happens on the intel platform.

But PPCs are power hogs, one reason Apple gave up on the idea of a G5  
Powerbook.

beww