Mac Mini for editing machine?

bigt[nz]bigt[nz]
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hi everyone, I am thinking about buying a mac mini as an editing machine.

I have a PC but i dont want to edit on it because it is my everyday use computer so of course it is always full of crap and is unreliable.

Obviously i would love a Powermac, but that is just way out of my price range.

I have used 1GHZ emacs for editing before and they were fine for small projects.

Could anyone let me know how Final Cut Pro would perform on a mac mini with 1GB RAM and maybe a faster HD? Keep in mind, this will be a short term solution to get something to edit on, until I can afford my Dual Processor G5.

I have just graduated from film school and I am itching to do some editing again.



Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    definitely get about 1GB of ram and an external drive to capture to. then you should be set. it obviously won't be super-high performance, but you'll be fine for small projects.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    cosmocosmo Posts: 662member
    remember, it only has 1 firewire port, so if you buy a firewire hdd, you'll need a hub to connect both the camera and hdd. not sure if this will hurt capturing performance...
  • Reply 3 of 10
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Cosmo

    remember, it only has 1 firewire port, so if you buy a firewire hdd, you'll need a hub to connect both the camera and hdd. not sure if this will hurt capturing performance...



    you can daisy chain. assuming your external drive has 2 firewire ports, plug one port into the computer and go from the camera to the hard drive with the other port. the beauty of firewire
  • Reply 4 of 10
    ransomedransomed Posts: 169member
    Think of it this way: At one point in time the Mini's configuration was top of the line (except perhaps for the amount of FW ports) Knowing that Final Cut is made by Apple and obviously optimized for Mac systems, it sure makes for a decent temporary solution.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    definitely get about 1GB of ram and an external drive to capture to. then you should be set. it obviously won't be super-high performance, but you'll be fine for small projects.



    Bingo. Good advice here.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    gregmightdothatgregmightdothat Posts: 1,709member
    From past experience, you cannot record from a firewire camera to a firewire drive. You get dropped frames up the wazoo, and if you get dropped frames on capture, then you need to start the capture all over again. Not so much fun. You can edit from a firewire drive once you've captured, so get one only if you'll be using lots of footage.



    Also, the Mac mini's internal drive is a laptop drive, which isn't exactly ideal for video, either., You're more likely to get dropped frames, especially if another program tries to use the hard disk during capture. But people do edit on laptops so you'll be fine for the short term.



    If/when you do get that G5, though, the whole experience will be much smoother.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    vox barbaravox barbara Posts: 2,021member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by gregmightdothat

    From past experience, you cannot record from a firewire camera to a firewire drive. (...), ...





    Objection. I've never 'countered dropped frames by recording directly

    to the HD, (which is connected to my PBs solely FW port).

    Does it without a hitch. Who said it? "Beauty of FW"
  • Reply 8 of 10
    gregmightdothatgregmightdothat Posts: 1,709member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Vox Barbara

    Objection. I've never 'countered dropped frames by recording directly

    to the HD, (which is connected to my PBs solely FW port).

    Does it without a hitch. Who said it? "Beauty of FW"



    Is one device connected to the FireWire 400 port and the other to the FireWire 800 port? If so, that's why you haven't dropped frames.



    If they're both going through the same bus, what drive are you using? Maybe it has smarter drivers than my crabby little drive does
  • Reply 9 of 10
    vox barbaravox barbara Posts: 2,021member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by gregmightdothat

    Is one device connected to the FireWire 400 port and the other to the FireWire 800 port? If so, that's why you haven't dropped frames.



    If they're both going through the same bus, what drive are you using? Maybe it has smarter drivers than my crabby little drive does



    PB 1ghz; only one FW400 port.

    The chain is:

    -->Pb-->newer 160GB LaCie FW 400-->Canon Mv 700.

    Works like a charm. I can't say anything about recording

    footage more than 10 min and beyond. But aprox. 10

    min is ok.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    cuello del pollocuello del pollo Posts: 22member
    I have both a G5 and a mac mini. I pretty much resigned myself to using the mini as an internet station. My mini currently sports 256 megs of ram. For "light" apps (Safari, iTunes), the mini handles itself quite well. Garageband, however, is painfully slow, and I haven't even bothered to open up iMovie. While an upgrade to 1gb would provide a much needed boost to your system I don't think the mini would be an adequate choice for video editing. A used G4 tower would offer far more expansion possibilities. I'm not sure what the cost difference between a mac mini with 1 gb of third party ram and a used G4 tower would be but it may be worth the extra few bucks to get a system that is more tailored to your needs.



    CDP
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