Mac Mini for Video Editing

[JoeyK]

So Apple has these Mac mini's that start out at about $500 on up, and actually the one for $500 is a 1.25GHz with a 40gig hd. I thought about buying one so I can use Final Cut Pro, but I dont mess with Mac's, I haven't in at least 3 years.

Has anyone ever tried to use one of these for video editing? I'm curious about the performance of it.

[Run 'n' Get 'em]

If an old powerbook g3 can handle FCP, Those things will do just fine at it

[aussie]

I use Final Cut Pro 4.5 on my Mini with great success. The rendering speed is good but if you are looking for greater speed a G5 iMac or Power Mac is required .
You will need at least 512megs of RAM. One Gig would be ideal.

[EditOne]

Are the Mini-Mac's closed architecture systems?

[aussie]

Linux & Unix are about the only open architecture systems around these days.
What do you want to run/connect to the Mac ?

[must-c-tv]

If you buy everything direct from Apple, the other option is to get an equivalent iBook.

The specs look the same to me, but with an iBook you will have a 14" screen instead of 20".

If you are in news, the more portable, battery powered iBook seems the better option - like many people, I've cut pkgs in cars, rough cuts on a plane etc with my laptop.

I just did the prices on www.apple.com: (http://www.apple.com:)

iBook 14" 1.42GHz
1GB DDR333 SDRAM (512MB built-in & 512MB SO-DIMM)
100GB Ultra ATA drive
8x SuperDrive + Keyboard & Mac OS X -
Unit Price: $1,599.00

OR

Mac mini 1.42GHz
1GB DDR333 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
8x SuperDrive
Mac OS X - U.S. English
Unit Price: $903.00
+ Apple Cinema Display (20" flat panel)
$799.00 + Apple keyboard $29 + mouse $19.95

Total: $1750.95

Just an idea....

[ September 26, 2005, 08:43 AM: Message edited by: must-c-tv ]

[EditOne]

Closed architecture, as in the user cannot upgrade the machine with a better video card, more ram or another hard drive? I find that as the software gets updated, the system requirements also change.

[aussie]

You can't change the video card on the Mini.
A RAM upgrade is very easy , although there is only one slot. The HD can be upgraded with a bit of surgery.

[canuckcam]

I have a Mac Mini that I upgraded with a 80gig 5400rpm drive (I got the Mini when it first came out with only 4200rpm drives) and 512MB of RAM (the 1GB DIMMs are still too expensive IMO)

It's semi-closed.

The Airport Extreme and Bluetooth modules cannot be user-added later (it really can be, but it's not an option to buy the part). They are on a separate USB bus from the two that are on the back of the machine so it won't lag any one of them.


The whole machine is built for office-type work and home theatre and average video editing. It's not built for power users. You wouldn't use a $599 Dell system to run Media Composer either, would you?

All that being said, the Mac Mini edits HDV in iMovie HD and FCP fairly well. The one limitation is that it only has one Firewire port, which means your external HD and camera must be daisy-chained, or buy an expensive FW hub. However, I've daisychained two FW HDs to my Sony miniDV camcorder and it works fine.

The earlier Mac Minis had a slightly lower p-p voltage on the analog lines in the DVI which made for dimmer VGA screens. Don't know if the Rev. B ones they sell now have this fixed. My friend brought over his Dell 24" DVI LCD... yummyyyy...

The internal HD is a notebook type drive, so even if you have a 7200rpm 2.5" drive, it'll never be as fast as a desktop drive. But for DV/HDV video, it's fine. But you'd probably want an external drive for much cheaper cost/MB space anyway.

One sore point about the Mac Mini is the power connector. It's not a locking-type, so it's very easy to pull it out if you mess around with the connectors at the back at all. And the connectors are VERY tight due to the overall size of the machine. I'd highly recommend a USB hub instead of poking around the back.

And the Mac Mini is whisper quiet. The machine is on my desk beside my monitor and I can barely hear the fan going. The HD in my FW external enclosure is louder than the entire Mac Mini.