HD Video Capture on G5 - Recommendations?

[riven2000]

Hello All,

I have some HD blu-rays I would like to transfer to my dual 2 Ghz G5 in 10.4.11, as regular video files I can watch. I've been looking at some hardware options but would like some suggestions. What is the best/cheapest way to do this? I used to use an old Dazzle DV Bridge, but that is painfully inadequate for HD. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Cornucopia]

I would say, without hardware (card/box) assistance, a G5 is not powerful enough to cap & encode most HD signals. Sounds like you've already figured that out though.

No... I'm sorry, are you just talking about ripping the BDs? That is doable (with DVDFab, etc).
If I was on the right track the first time, I'd say Blackmail or Aja are really the only GOOD, moderately-priced options for Macs.

Scott

[riven2000]

Thanks for your response. Yeah, some kind of capture hardware, although those two are a bit pricey. Basically I want to rip the blu-rays at full resolution.

[usually_quiet]

Your OS is a problem as well as the CPU.

I looked at Elgato's Game Capture HD and Hauppauge's HD-PVR 2, which encode using hardware. Your Mac does not meet the system requirements for either. For the ElgatoGame Capture HD that is 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (or comparable) and OS X 10.9 (or later). For the Hauppauge HD-PVR 2 and HDPVRCapture software (purchased separately) that's Mac OSX 10.7 / 10.8 and Intel 32/64bit.

Then I looked at external Blu-Ray drive and ripping software. There are USB 2.0 external Blu-Ray drives that could work (I saw them at OWC), but current ripping software (for example MakeMKV & DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper for Mac) requires requires an x86 Mac and OS X 10.6 (or later in some cases).

This leads me to believe you need to use another computer to acquire the video that you want to watch.

[riven2000]

Yeah, I've been looking at several options. At best the G5 could probably only do 1/2 (DVD) resolution of Blu-rays, so you're probably right. Thanks anyway though!