[Gee4orce]

Macs Only hint at something in Tiger that Apple hasn 't mentioned, something special for G5 users...

Surprise: Finally, those with Power Mac G5s (and maybe iMac G5s) are in for a terrific surprise that we can not disclose until April 29 because, for some reason, Apple hasn't.

So, are they talking out of their asses, or do they know something I don't ? What's in store ? Any guesses ?

[discotronic]

Sounds to me like they are blowing smoke but.....

I am all about getting a surprise

[ThisGuy]

one of these?

[Krypton]

Wouldn't something like this have appeared in the pre-GM builds?

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Krypton:
Wouldn't something like this have appeared in the pre-GM builds?

It should have, yes, though it's possible that the rumor sites didn't find it (or weren't informed of it, as the case may be) before now. If it only appeared in the GM build, someone in Apple's QA department is going to be very angry about it.

[larkost]

Apple has been rather silent on Quartz 2D Extreme, and that mostly runs only on the cards that come with the G5's (PowerMac and iMac). It could be that....

Personally I think the silence is because they don't want to hype a feature that the majority of users are not going to be able to use (because older cards don't have the ability to use). It is also a bit hard to market that feature without a demo.

[teszeract]

maybe it's that really fancy software that was in the news last year. What's it called? - the one that does binary translation for any CPU to any CPU?

[Socially Awkward Solo]

Sounds like total bull to me.

Why wouldn't Apple push the G5 feature the day all the press comes out and the day people get hyped and order it.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Socially Awkward Solo:
Why wouldn't Apple push the G5 feature the day all the press comes out and the day people get hyped and order it.

Well, Steve does have a pathological fetish for surprises, to the point where I believe it's done us more harm than good over the years. That said, I agree with you that it's not terribly likely.

[jamil5454]

Steve will surprise us by announcing that all G5 processors are really 128-bit instead of 64-bit! Now Tiger will run a zillion times faster, and you can put in 3.4x10^38 bytes of memory?

Or maybe a bit more realistic:

"For all of you who have the DP 2.5 PowerMac, congratulations. Your liquid cooling system will be leaking soon if it hasn't already."

[Agent Macintosh]

Someone on AppleInsider thinks all PM G5s have dual-layer superdrives but they can only be used as dual-layer drives in tiger. in panther they acted like single-layer.

It is in this thred

Post #2

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by Agent Macintosh:
Someone on AppleInsider thinks all PM G5s have dual-layer superdrives but they can only be used as dual-layer drives in tiger. in panther they acted like single-layer.

It is in this thred

Post #2

Even though looking up the drive specs from the manufacturer says it is impossible?

[Agent Macintosh]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
Even though looking up the drive specs from the manufacturer says it is impossible?

It wasn't my idea.

[CharlesS]

Well, this would certainly be a nice surprise for people looking at an iMac or a Power Mac.

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0504macs.html

[pliny]

[FONT=Book Antiqua]sure are alot of new options for posting, i forgot what i was going to post about the G5 surprise, oh well. [/FONT]

[KraziKid]

Maybe it is the fact that +R and +RW are now supported by tiger? If you go in to About this Mac, and click More Info, and then look at Disc Burning, you see +R and +RW are now supported.

[Noonster]

^^ Really :o
- Got a screenshot of this??

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by KraziKid

Maybe it is the fact that +R and +RW are now supported by tiger? If you go in to About this Mac, and click More Info, and then look at Disc Burning, you see +R and +RW are now supported.

I'm already burning to +R on my PM G5 2.0 with Panther, so that's nothing new.
However, my System profile says I have a

PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-117D:

Capacity: 791.34 MB
Manufacturer: PIONEER
Model: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-117D
Revision: B705
Drive Type: CD-RW/DVD-RW
Disc Burning: Apple Supported/Shipped
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk2
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
OS9 Drivers: No

inside, so don't understand how this relates to the models named in those stories. Maybe mine can burn DVD +- Blu Ray etc at a 52 speed, but Apple doesn't want me to, yet???

[Eriamjh]

Apple is really good at Handicapping its own users, but rarely unhandicaps them at a later date. It wants users to upgrade.

[powerbook867]

SONY DVD RW DW-U10A:

Firmware Revision: A43h
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Apple Shipped/Supported)
Cache: 8192 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media:
Media Type: DVD-R
Blank: No
Erasable: No
Overwritable: No
Appendable: No

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Agent Macintosh

Someone on AppleInsider thinks all PM G5s have dual-layer superdrives but they can only be used as dual-layer drives in tiger. in panther they acted like single-layer.

It is in this thred

Post #2

That person knows nothing of what they're talking about. PMG5s have been around since well before dual-layer drives existed. Although there is a small but nonzero chance that Apple might have been able to figure out how to make them do dual-layer, they would most likely have to violate several laws of physics in the process.

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by ThisGuy

one of these?

And what the hell is that? Some kind of USB anal love beads gadget?

[jamil5454]

Woohoo! The iMacs finally have a decent card in them. If the dual 2.0 PowerMac takes the place of the single 1.8, I'm going to be stumped as to what to buy for college. Since the eMac is being updated with a new CoreImage compatible card, maybe the iBooks will get a Go5200 or something. And Thinksecret said that although unconfirmed, notes are pointing to the 970MP model in the new PowerMacs.

From the link posted in a previous reply:
"Sources were unable to confirm at this time whether the systems will sport the dual-core PowerPC 970MP processor or the single-core PowerPC 970GX, although unconfirmed notes point to the PowerPC 970MP. The second core would deliver performance gains far greater than the 200-300MHz bumps each processor is receiving alone with the update."
-Thinksecret

[Kerrigan]

Originally Posted by pliny

[FONT=Book Antiqua]sure are alot of new options for posting, i forgot what i was going to post about the G5 surprise, oh well. [/FONT]

[FONT=Chicago]Hmm, yes, I never noticed that before[/FONT]

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by pliny

[FONT=Book Antiqua]sure are alot of new options for posting, i forgot what i was going to post about the G5 surprise, oh well. [/FONT]

[FONT=Impact]INTERESTING[/FONT]

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Grrr

And what the hell is that? Some kind of USB anal love beads gadget?

You're closer than you probably intended to be.

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by Appleman

I'm already burning to +R on my PM G5 2.0 with Panther, so that's nothing new.
However, my System profile says I have a

PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-117D:

Capacity: 791.34 MB
Manufacturer: PIONEER
Model: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-117D
Revision: B705
Drive Type: CD-RW/DVD-RW
Disc Burning: Apple Supported/Shipped
Removable Media: Yes
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk2
Protocol: ATAPI
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
OS9 Drivers: No

inside, so don't understand how this relates to the modeles named in those stories. Maybe mine can burn DVD +- Blu Ray etc at a 52 speed, but Apple doesn't want me to, yet???

The 117D is actually a DVR-108 with the firmware locked down to basically DVR-107 functionality. The 117D can be flashed to a fully-functional DVR-108 (I've done it do mine) which will give you 32x CDR speeds, 2.4x and 4x DVD+R DL burn support (yes! dual-layer), and 12x DVD rip speeds, among other features.
This will void the warranty, however, if Apple ever notices.

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by ThisGuy

one of these?

My wife has something exactly like that... without the USB cable, of course.

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by Cadaver

The 117D is actually a DVR-108 with the firmware locked down to basically DVR-107 functionality. The 117D can be flashed to a fully-functional DVR-108 (I've done it do mine) which will give you 32x CDR speeds, 2.4x and 4x DVD+R DL burn support (yes! dual-layer), and 12x DVD rip speeds, among other features.
This will void the warranty, however, if Apple ever notices.

And how do you flash this thing? Interesting, specially when Millennium says: "they would most likely have to violate several laws of physics in the process.".

If you can give me a link, or a manual ?
Thanks!

[KraziKid]

Okay, how about this. I just flashed my 117D to become a 108, and it Burn Support is Yes, even though I did not install patchburn. Maybe Apple now finally supports 3rd party Disc-Burners?

[Appleman]

Originally Posted by KraziKid

Okay, how about this. I just flashed my 117D to become a 108, and it Burn Support is Yes, even though I did not install patchburn. Maybe Apple now finally supports 3rd party Disc-Burners?

If you can give me a link, or a manual ?
Thanks!

[Grrr]

I think the surprise is Apples system requirements for a multiway video chat in iChat..

"To support hosting a multiperson video conference, you need a Dual 1 GHz G4 or a Dual 2 GHz G5."

They must be f'ing joking..

[krove]

Originally Posted by Grrr

I think the surprise is Apples system requirements for a multiway video chat in iChat..

"To support hosting a multiperson video conference, you need a Dual 1 GHz G4 or a Dual 2 GHz G5."

They must be f'ing joking..

[FONT=Century Gothic]Buh Jebus![/FONT]

[piracy]

Originally Posted by Grrr

I think the surprise is Apples system requirements for a multiway video chat in iChat..

"To support hosting a multiperson video conference, you need a Dual 1 GHz G4 or a Dual 2 GHz G5."

They must be f'ing joking..

Um, first of all, that's only for multiperson.

Secondly, this is live, realtime H.264 encoding we're talking about here.

[EmmEff]

That real-time H.264 video encoding/decoding doesn't come for free...

[krove]

If you think about what needs to be encoded/decoded where and then the network logistics of sending those multiple streams, it would logically boil down to this:

From a data-processing standpoint:
- individual participants in a multi-person chat must still encode/decode the outgoing (one) and incoming (multiple) H.264 streams
- any other way and the bandwidth usage would be far higher

From a networking standpoint:
- A single computer must coordinate the individual participants to ensure synchronization. In two-way this is less important because there is only a single lag. If multiple lags of different lengths between several people arose, chaos would ensue because people would be speaking when others thought there was silence, etc.
- This need for a "master" computer to control the network synchronization issues results in the need for more processing power. All other computers simply need to have enough power to decode incoming streams and encode their outgoing stream.

In my copious amounts of spare time, I created a graphic to demonstrate:
http://homepage.mac.com/krove/.Pictu...iple_ichat.png

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by piracy

Um, first of all, that's only for multiperson.

Secondly, this is live, realtime H.264 encoding we're talking about here.

I know thats for multiperson. i did say as much.
Besides, what can a dual 1ghz G4 do that say, a dual 1.8ghz G5 cant? Thats a sky high system requirement in anyones book.
Schiller & Co sure kept quiet about that in the demo..

Having said that, the iChat help viewer specs differ from whats listed on the apple ichat site page. So who knows..

[bpd115]

they also want you to have 1 MB UP according to iChat Help.

[krove]

Guess I'll have to get a new computer and upgrade to the more expensive, fatter DSL pipe.

[Xeo]

Originally Posted by KraziKid

Okay, how about this. I just flashed my 117D to become a 108, and it Burn Support is Yes, even though I did not install patchburn. Maybe Apple now finally supports 3rd party Disc-Burners?

I didn't know about patchburn until you just said that. I went and looked it up and sure enough, my Pioneer 108 would have worked perfectly in Panther with that. However, it's nice that it works without that patch in Tiger.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Grrr

I think the surprise is Apples system requirements for a multiway video chat in iChat..

"To support hosting a multiperson video conference, you need a Dual 1 GHz G4 or a Dual 2 GHz G5."

Where the hell did that number come from? Is that an error iChat gives? Their product specs say any G5 will do. If they're advertising support that isn't there, I'm predicting another round of sue-the-Apple.

[Mediaman_12]

I have just got a G5 (duel 1.8). In my old G4 I had replaced the standard 'superdrive' with a Pioneer 108 duel layer. So as the G5 drive (supposedly) doesn't ship with duel layer drive I took the drive out to swap them over. Guess what, the drives in the current G5's ARE labelled as Pioneer DVR-108's (even though they don't appear as such in the System Profiler).
The thing being that after the DVR-108 on the label there is the letters AA, and on my 'shop bought' 108 these letters are BK. The interesting thing is that if you search on the Pioneer site for 108AA, you get nothing (while a search for 108BK gets the driver page) It's as if the drive doesn't exist.
It is totally possible that when the 108's started being put in the G5's Apple didn't want to 'upgrade' the drives at that time, so they patched the firmware to mask the drives identity and to reduce it's functionality to match the previous G5 'Superdrives'.
If Tiger does update this firmware back to the drives full abilities, I will be a bit pissed. Meaning I swapped out (and sold with my previous G4) a perfectly good newer drive, for a slightly older one, for no reason.

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by bpd115

they also want you to have 1 MB UP according to iChat Help.

Which is a lot, but understandable considering.. Its those manic system requirements that are crazy..

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Where the hell did that number come from? Is that an error iChat gives? Their product specs say any G5 will do. If they're advertising support that isn't there, I'm predicting another round of sue-the-Apple.

If you have tiger, go to the iChat help viewer app, and look in the "Hosting a multiperson video conference" section, and in there it tells you the system requirements. But again, it contradicts Apples own website.

[bpd115]

Originally Posted by Grrr

Which is a lot, but understandable considering.. Its those manic system requirements that are crazy..

I agree the dual 2.0 requirement is nuts (I'm the only one in my mac owning family that meets it)..
spread throughout my family is a 1.25 G4 iMac, a 1Ghz eMac, 2 1.25 eMacs, a 1.8 G5 Power Mac, a 1.8 G5 iMac, 2 1.33 Powerbook G4s, a 1.25 Mac Mini, a 1.42 Mac Mini, 2 1 Ghz iBook G4s, my 2.0 Dual G5, and my Uncle just ordered a 1.42 Mac Mini...

According to the iChat help, I'm the only one who could host a multiway if the dual 2 requirement is right..and I can't do it at all if the 1 meg UP bandwidth is right. I have 3 meg down and around 400 up...not many people out there have 1 meg up....

The iChat spec page has for 1 to 1 video 100Kbps and for 4 way 384 Kbps to host which makes more sense.

Also, it seems that you only get 30 FPS in iChat when doing G5 to G5. G5 to G4 is 15 FPS now I believe.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Grrr

"To support hosting a multiperson video conference, you need a Dual 1 GHz G4 or a Dual 2 GHz G5."

That can't be right. How is it that a dual 1 GHz G4 would be able to do it, but a dual 1.8 GHz G5 wouldn't?

[piracy]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

That can't be right. How is it that a dual 1 GHz G4 would be able to do it, but a dual 1.8 GHz G5 wouldn't?

Jeez, it's obviously a freaking error.

The correct specs to host/initiate a multi-person video are a dual-1 GHz G4 or greater, or any G5.

As for the 1 Mbps upstream others are talking about, try to stop thinking about this in terms of *exclusively* home users on cable modems or DSL. There are *shitloads* of institutional Mac OS X users who will have absolutely no problems with the bandwidth requirements whatsoever.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by piracy

Jeez, it's obviously a freaking error.

The correct specs to host/initiate a multi-person video are a dual-1 GHz G4 or greater, or any G5.
.

Since a 1.5Ghz PowerBook has around the same performance as the Dual 1Ghz G4 is it included?

[bpd115]

Originally Posted by piracy

Jeez, it's obviously a freaking error.

The correct specs to host/initiate a multi-person video are a dual-1 GHz G4 or greater, or any G5.

As for the 1 Mbps upstream others are talking about, try to stop thinking about this in terms of *exclusively* home users on cable modems or DSL. There are *shitloads* of institutional Mac OS X users who will have absolutely no problems with the bandwidth requirements whatsoever.

Which is fine and dandy if it were marketed that way but it's targeted at the home user as well. Hopefully it's 384 and not 1 Mbps.

[jocker]

Bullsh*t - you don't need a dual 2ghz G5.

Any G5 will do - even the single processor 1.6 iMac

Some people just talk rubbish on these boards.