DVD Playback on G3 iMac?

#1 Thu, 8 Jul 2010 - 13:26 68kMLA

Just out of curiosity, did the slot load iMacs that came with DVD drives have special decoder hardware? Or was the decoding hardware integrated into the Rage 128 graphics chipset?

I am wondering if it's possible to play DVD movies if I salvage a sloat load and install it in my CD equipped machine.

Thanks.

#2 Thu, 8 Jul 2010 - 16:39 68kMLA

All slot-load iMacs should play DVDs just fine. There's no special decoding hardware but the video/CPU combo is fast enough to handle it. Just keep in mind that the DVD drive in them is really odd duck and the only likely source to salvage one is another iMac. (You probably already know that, of course.)

#3 Thu, 8 Jul 2010 - 22:52 68kMLA

If you need an extra working slot loaded DVD drive, let me know. I've got a dead G3 iMac 500 Mhz FW400 (Bad PAV board) that I can part out for you. Drop me a line via PM and we can talk.

73s de Phreakout. :rambo:

#4 Sun, 11 Jul 2010 - 02:29 68kMLA

For what its worth, if anyone's curious, one day I actually pulled the adapter board off the back of the DVD drive on my slot load iMac. Between the adapter board and the drive is a standard laptop ATAPI connector, the same as most other iMacs and laptops. I have actually run a standard notebook drive on it, too, which means that the iMac is electrically compatible with standard drives. However, its not physically compatible. The connector is on the complete opposite side to what it is on a standard drive, meaning that while it will physically connect, you won't be able to mount the drive, you'll have to have it sitting on top of the iMac which you'll have to have sitting upside down. I did this to get Tiger installed on my iMac, since for whatever reason the iMac DVD drive didn't like my Tiger DVD, but its not something you'd really want to do unless you really, really, really have to.

#5 Sun, 1 Aug 2010 - 06:02 68kMLA

DVD Player is software only, and will generally work on any Mac with a Rage 128 or better and 500MHz or faster G3. It might work on an older slower model, you'd just have to experiment. My 500 MHZ iMac works, my 300 MHz PowerBook doesn't cut it.