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#1 |
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Prospect
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 2
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Netflix on a PPC! It's POSSIBLE! ....kind of.
Disclaimer - this method will only work if you have "partial access" to an Intel Mac...sorry to get your hopes up. I feel your pain.
Being a subscriber to Netflix, I was super duper excited when they first released the PC streaming. Of course, I was then let down to realize that it was indeed PC streaming.. as in "Not Mac Compatible". For those with Intel Macs and a copy of Windows, they could watch fine via Bootcamp, etc. Finally, the dream was brought to those with Intel Macs, (without Windows) via Silverlight. Those with PowerPCs are still left in the dark. BUT! What I have done recently is a simple quick way to watch my Netflix Instant movies in a half decent quality. Unfortunately, you need an Intel Mac anyway, and the only reason I can think of that you'd want to do this is if you had a desktop Mac, but wanted to watch your instant movies on the couch or in bed, somewhere on your PPC laptop (this now actually makes me think it might apply to all those people still toting around their trusty PowerBooks, but..yeah) My subjects: iMac, 2.4GHz, 10.5.6, 4GB RAM. Intel. iBook G4, 1.33GHz, 10.5.2, 1 GB RAM. PowerPC (duh) Now, to my simple explanation. Using iChat on my iMac, I share my screen with my iBook G4. Navigate to the Netflix site, select what you want to watch instantly, (I like to go to fullscreen). I can now get the video portion of my instant Netflix! Now, to get the audio, I put a double ended 3.5mm audio cord (headphones) into the headphone jack and and microphone jack, and change the audio in my iChat preferences from microphone to line in. This now routes the audio from the iMac through to the iBook. I now have both audio and video, and decent quality, on my PowerPC iBook. We have decently fast internet, about 8.5k DL and 500+ UL tops. Both of these computers are in the same household, as well, working off of the same internet, router, wifi, so I'm not sure how well/seamless it would work/look in different conditions. Proof! ![]() So, that's it, time to expand on this idea, try it out for yourself, and improve! Things I have questions about: 1. Getting my iMac's system audio through iChat screen sharing- What I did above was just put the earphone through to the mic, but I'm sure there is a terminal command or applescript that will do that for you...right? 2. Different decent screen sharing application? Both of these computers are running Leopard, but could a different application bridge the gap between older OS? 3. Compatibility with other PowerPC's (that's your queue to test) thanks for reading! |
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#2 | |||||||||||||||||||
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Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Boulder, CO USA
Posts: 19,853
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Note that the "microphone jack" in your iBook is actually a line-in jack. (Macs haven't had microphone jacks for many years.) This benefits you in this case, since if it was actually a microphone jack, the audio output from the headphone jack would completely overload it. On the other hand, a line-in jack should be able to accept the headphone output with no problem. Trevor |
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#3 |
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Prospect
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 2
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Good point. That's what I meant
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#4 |
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MVP
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Korat, Thailand
Posts: 2,046
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You could also run Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil on the Intel "server" and their new Airfoil Speakers on the PPC "client".
I've tried this (just for fun) with Joost on Safari and it works.
__________________
http://www.mgnewman.com/ |
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#5 |
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Guest
Posts: n/a
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Sorry for my ignorance...
I have been trying to find out what prevents the ppc from working with netflix. Just a thought with the use of Flip4Mac would it work if Safari would "fake" a Intel processor, would the netflix server fall for that? And how would you do this, I know using the Developer menu you can "fake" other browsers. |
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