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funkboy · Feb 20, 2006, 03:21 PM

Has anyone ever gotten USB 2.0 on a G4 Cube? I have a 450MHz (with the RAM maxed out to 1.5GB!) and would love to use it as a little TV. I have a ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0, and it will only run on a USB 2.0 port (I tried on my G4 Cube's port).

Has it ever been done? There are no upgrades available, correct?

tooki · Feb 20, 2006, 03:23 PM

There's no way to do it, since that machine has zero internal expansion.

tooki

DrBoar · Feb 21, 2006, 08:15 AM

As there are no PCI slots in there the only theoretical way would to have a firewire dongle converting to USB2 not that I ever have seen one. A google of "usb2 firewire converter" suggest that other have looked in vain to.

Severed Hand of Skywalker · Feb 21, 2006, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by funkboy

Has anyone ever gotten USB 2.0 on a G4 Cube? I have a 450MHz (with the RAM maxed out to 1.5GB!) and would love to use it as a little TV. I have a ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0, and it will only run on a USB 2.0 port (I tried on my G4 Cube's port).

Has it ever been done? There are no upgrades available, correct?

Can't you just get a firewire solution such as eyetv?

funkboy · Feb 21, 2006, 03:03 PM

Actually, a friend of mine just found a USB2 -> Firewire converter (as long as he looked at it properly and it wasn't the other way around).

The firewire solution (an EyeTV 200 or better) may work. The main thing is I already have the USB 2.0 TV Wonder, and even the lowest-end EyeTV 200 costs over $300. Also, the minimum requirements say a G4 running at 500MHz - my Cube is 450, so it may still work, but it may hiccup, too.

ybalx · Feb 23, 2006, 09:47 AM

I don't know the answer to your question... move the question over to cubeowner dot com forums is my advice.

Cadaver · Feb 26, 2006, 10:02 AM

Originally Posted by tooki

There's no way to do it, since that machine has zero internal expansion.

Seconded.

tooki · Feb 26, 2006, 01:11 PM

Originally Posted by funkboy

Actually, a friend of mine just found a USB2 -> Firewire converter (as long as he looked at it properly and it wasn't the other way around).

Care to provide a link to that? The only such product I've ever seen didn't actually do any such conversion, it was a super-dedicated plug adapter for one specific product.

tooki

Eug Wanker · Feb 26, 2006, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by funkboy

Actually, a friend of mine just found a USB2 -> Firewire converter (as long as he looked at it properly and it wasn't the other way around).

The firewire solution (an EyeTV 200 or better) may work. The main thing is I already have the USB 2.0 TV Wonder, and even the lowest-end EyeTV 200 costs over $300. Also, the minimum requirements say a G4 running at 500MHz - my Cube is 450, so it may still work, but it may hiccup, too.

Yeah, for that kind of money, you may as well just buy a Mac mini (and sell your Cube). Maybe we'll see an Intel Mac mini on Tuesday? I wonder if Rosetta would work with that software.

Originally Posted by tooki

Care to provide a link to that?

Seconded.

FireWire · Feb 26, 2006, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by funkboy

Has anyone ever gotten USB 2.0 on a G4 Cube?

I don't think you have much luck..

See a similar thread on the iMac forum. It's a shame that such a product doesn't exist, as it is the main limitation on these otherwise perfectly good machines.

mduell · Feb 26, 2006, 05:01 PM

There's this box, which claims: "a versatile breakout box to provide editors and videographers with all the connectivity they need using just a simple USB2 computer connection"

mountainash · Mar 24, 2006, 11:58 AM

Well, you could design a PCI bridge for the AGP slot, and then run USB off that. You'd probably have to hack the firmware and the OS. Or figure out how to get USB2 into firewire.

Cut your losses, and go for the eyetv.

Luca Rescigno · Mar 24, 2006, 12:24 PM

Originally Posted by ShazamItsDavish2

Well, you could design a PCI bridge for the AGP slot, and then run USB off that. You'd probably have to hack the firmware and the OS. Or figure out how to get USB2 into firewire.

Cut your losses, and go for the eyetv.

If you do that, how do you get video?

joe · Mar 26, 2006, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

If you do that, how do you get video?

If you get an EyeTV200, it has a/v inputs (inc S-Vid) along with a regular TV tuner but it is Firewire 400 bus powered. And it works great with my buddy's Cube. It also has MPEG1,2, 4 compression in hardware so it won't bog down your cpu. Disadvantage - pricey compared to the ATI TV Wonder which has no hardware compression. Even if you manage to get a USB TV wonder working on USB1.x you'd almost certainly end up with plenty of dropped frames given both the limited bandwidth of USB1.x and the slower cpu. And multitasking would be out of the question.

If money is tight and funkboy can't find an EyeTV200 used, another option would be to try to find a used Formac Studio dv/tv, or TVR. Be careful tho, there was also a tuner-less version called the Formac Studio which looks identical. Also, the older dv/tv model includes a radio tuner with the TV tuner while the newer TVR is TV tuner only but is suppose to be improved compared to the TV tuner of the dv/tv model. Disadvantages of the formac devices: software isn't up to EyeTV quality-wise (tho iApps and free 3rd party Vidi partially remedy that), and the DV hardware compression isn't as efficient as MPEG. Advantages of Formac DV: compression can work with Apple's iApps (Formac flash may have to be updated), all versions have more i/o than EyeTV hardware, and they are all Firewire bus powered - perfect for the USB1.x Cube.

I previously owned a Formac Studio dv/tv which I used with my Cube but sold when the EyeTV200 became available. Personally I think the EyeTV200 is a better package. But a quick check on eBay shows a Studio dv/tv model just sold for $103.50 US on 3-22-06. For the money, that's a excellent option for a Cube owner. Especially since the EyeTV 200 seems to go for about 2.5-3x that amount on eBay! Now that I have a Tower, I wish these companies would come up with a similar PCI-based version with the same features (Alchemy doesn't cut it).

mountainash · Mar 27, 2006, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

If you do that, how do you get video?

You mean adapting the AGP bus to PCI? You can use PCI video or AGP at 1X...

roody · Mar 27, 2006, 08:51 AM

Originally Posted by funkboy

Actually, a friend of mine just found a USB2 -> Firewire converter (as long as he looked at it properly and it wasn't the other way around).

The firewire solution (an EyeTV 200 or better) may work. The main thing is I already have the USB 2.0 TV Wonder, and even the lowest-end EyeTV 200 costs over $300. Also, the minimum requirements say a G4 running at 500MHz - my Cube is 450, so it may still work, but it may hiccup, too.

I went through the exact same thing with a cube and a plextor usb tv box around this time last year.

The bad news - I can confirm that the usb -> firewire converter doesn't exist. There are numerous discussions all over about it's possible existence but, as they are two completely different technologies, no-one has made one yet.

The good news - if you do decide to go with the eyetv200 I can confirm that the 450MHz processor is fine to run it. Mine never had any problems whatsoever.

There is a great website for all things "cube" here: www.cubeowner.com and they have a very good FAQ section which could probably give you some more ideas too.