Is there a cheap way to connect my G4 to my TV-set?
Feels kind of antisocial to sit in front of my screen
all by myself to watch a movie.

Why isn´t there a G4 AV in the first place?

What you need is a video card with TV-out. Not sure if there is any for the Mac but there are plenty for PCs.

One may wonder though, why you can´t choose such a videocard with TV/video-out from Apple Store.
Why isn´t there more fuss about this, as I said, who wants to look at DVD-movies on the screen?

So far, I´ve only found ATI xclaim or some voodo-card with s-video out, but I´m not sure whether that card works with a Mac or not.

There is this thing that converts USB to Videosignal, but it´s kind of expensive and there is a new converter coming wich converts Firewire to Video and vice versa.

But all these solutions seem to be more complicated than it has to be.

I want a G4 with AV as standardconfiguration!!!

first you have to have some sort of audio video card. I recommend the ATI Xclaim VR 128 w TV tuner (its a mac version of the xclaim vr all-in-one).

Its a pretty good card (www.epinions.com if you dont believe me). it has a tv tuner, video in (3 rca and s-video) and video out (s-video, tv-out and 1 rca). its a pretty good gaming card (its the exact same one that comes with the g4, only this one is more multimedia).

basically, you put in the dvd, put the screen to full screen mode, and use the tv-out (s-video) or video rca to plug into the appropriate port on your tv. then for sound, if you have a sweet set of compu-speakers (ie Cambridge Soundworks Digital FPS2000) the you are fine. Else you can buy a mini-plug-->rca audio converter from radio shack and pipe sound into your stereo system.

i think ati makes the best card for mac. the other companies (formac, voodoo) suck IMHO.


there is also the ITV VIew and such products from the mac catalog people. basically its just a fancy vga-->s-video converter. It runs about 150, but the ati card does tons more for 177 @ www.buy.com