[HOWTO] - DVD Player 3.0 on B&W G3's

[Darkshadow]

From xlr8yourmac.com:

DVDs Playing on my B&W G3 with OS X 10.1 Player Mod! - Here's How: -

I can now say that the mod noted earlier today does work, at least on a B&W G3. I have a B&W G3 with a PCI Radeon card and the original DVD-ROM drive. As I'm typing this a DVD movie is playing on it with OS X 10.1's DVD Player. Here's how I did it:

I could find the Essentials.pax.pkg, but not a "Essentials.pkg.gz" file that was noted in a reader post below. Since I own several Macs that are "supported" by the 10.1 DVD player, I made a copy of the DVD player from a G4/AGP system here.


1. Running OS 9 (not Classic mode), I made a duplicate of the DVD Player.app - which makes it appear as a folder vs a file in OS 9. (Hexedit can't open the player.app "file"). (I did this part of the work on a G4/AGP with OS 9.2.1 and OS X installed on the same volume. One reader noted duplicating the DVD player.app did not make it a folder - but I tested this twice - it does here on this Mac, repeatably. If you can't get that to work see below this post for another option.)


2. Using Hexedit I opened the "DVD Player" file that's in the Contents/MacOS folder. Using the Find command I searched for the string "PowerMac2" to find the listing of "PowerMac2.1,.."


3. I changed the "2" in "PowerMac2,1" to "1" (i.e. now reading "PowerMac1,1") and saved the file.
(The image below shows where I found "PowerMac2,1" in the file and changed it to "PowerMac1,1".)

[I'm linking to the image from their site...this may or may not stay]:



(Note - PowerMac1,1 works for the B&W G3. For other Macs boot into OF as noted in the post below to see the PowerMac ID, if the 1,1 code does not work. Note - A Lombard G3/333 Owner said his ID was PowerBook1,1 but the mod did not work on that system which had a VST DVD drive.)


4. I then renamed the "DVD Player.app copy" folder to "DVD Player.app" and it "changes" back to a single file icon. I copied that file to the B&W G3's OS X 10.1 Applications folder

Of course I then launched the DVD Player and inserted a DVD movie to verify it worked. So far so good. I have not tested with the original Rage128 card, but I suspect that would not matter This B&W G3 has an OWC G4/500 installed right now for review tests, but the CPU type should not matter with the changes above.
What I'd be curious to know is if the RageProLT (Lombard and Wallstreet2) or RageLT (Original Wallstreet) graphics chips would work with this mod. If any owners try that - let me know. (I do not have OS X installed on my Wallstreet.)**

Note: If duplicating the DVD Player.app does not make the copy a folder, try this reader tip:

" I copied the DVD Player.app from my Firewire G3 Powerbook and transferred it to my B&W. Then I placed it in the Applications (OSX) Folder. Right-clicking on the file brings up the menu, then I selected "show package contents". From there I opened the "contents" "mac os" folders, and then opened the DVD Player with HexEdit and did the mod."

[AdmiralAK]

I would be more than glad to test it out with the original rage 128 card

Can this player be download it ?
Is it "small" enough to be send by email ?
Can you distribute it ?


Thanks!

[Darkshadow]

Heh, this isn't from me, it's from xlr8yourmac.com. I was just posting it here for you guys cause I've seen y'all (mainly you ) wanting a patch or hack that will let the DVD Player run on B&W G3s.

I happen to have a G4/450 (from last year)...DVD Player works fine for me. I do, however, have HexEdit, and can apply this patch if you want me to. I don't have a place to put it, though. I'll do the patch, and if you're still on, I'll PM ya.

[ThE OutsiDer]

I tried it on my G3 400MHZ B/W with ATI 128n and it works! Get it at Classic Gamer on Carracho.
Just type in "roms" in the tracker search window.
Its in the "OSX file of the day" folder...

[Red Phoenix]

For those who can't or aren't willing to find go and search for a hacked version of the DVD player, here's a couple of steps that aren't included either here or at www.xlr8yourmac.com . They are specific to the MacOS X.I updater CD and I'm assuming you have 300+ MB free on your OS X partition, but it ought to be easily modified:

Insert the update CD. Open the terminal and type:

cp /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ CD/System/Installation/Packages/Essentials.pkg/Contents/Resources/Essentials.pax.gz ~/Desktop/

and then, after that's all done:

cd ~/Desktop/; gzip -d Essentials.pax.gz

Again, after that's all done, type:

pax -f Essentials.pax -r ./Applications/DVD\ Player.app

When this is done, you can clean up the Desktop by typing

rm Essentials.pax Essentials.pax.gz

We can temporarily leave the Terminal alone for now. On your desktop should be a new folder called "Applications". Inside there is the DVD player. Instead of booting into OS 9, just control or right-click on the DVD player icon, and select "Show Package Contents". Open Contents/MacOS, and there's the DVD program itself. Edit this as the instructions say to.

When done, go back to the Terminal, and type:

chmod 755 Applications/DVD\ Player.app/Contents/MacOS/DVD\ Player

You can then copy the DVD Player.app into your Applications folder, and delete the new folder on your desktop.

[Darkshadow]

Hmm, you don't have to copy the pax file to your HD, you can leave it right on the CD by doing this command instead:

gunzip -c /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ CD/System/Installation/Packages/Essentials.pkg/Contents/Resources/Essentials.pax.gz | pax -r ./Applications/DVD\ Player.app

A little note: This will create a new folder named Applications wherever you happen to be in the terminal when you do this. So if you want it to appear on your Desktop, do this before the above command:

cd ~/Desktop

The only bad thing about doing it this way is that it takes a small eternity to extract the DVD Player.app from it.

[Red Phoenix]

Yeah, that's true, I didn't think of it that way. I did most of that in the GUI, and so it didn't occur to me. Good point (and probably faster than the way I did it.)

[vic]

I'M BLIND!