ibook buying tips.

martinjansonmartinjanson
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Would a standard iBook 12" be enough for basic video editing? if not, would a basic mac mini work for video editing? Would any of these need any upgrades (ram, ect) to work well with basic video editing?



The options are like this:



Person A gets a PowerBook 15".

Person B gets Nada.



or



Person A gets a iBook 12" and maybe a mac mini. /*maybe beefed up if needed*/

Person B gets a iBook 12". //just the standard

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    semi-flysemi-fly Posts: 35member
    Anything'll work for basic video editing, it just depends on what type of editing you plan to do - for basic video footage an iBook / MacMini should work fine - if you plan to encode full length DVD's and author your own menu's you'll definitely want somthing faster, such as a dual G5.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    martinjansonmartinjanson Posts: 13member
    Ill forward the reply to the person, I am person B by the way :P
  • Reply 3 of 4
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    With video editing, whether basic or advanced, the more RAM the better. Processor speed is certainly important for video, but the more RAM you have, the more the Mac can render at once instead of having to swap out to virtual memory and so on.



    So as far as RAM goes, start with a minimum of 512MB and go higher if at all possible. I have 1GB of RAM on my Powerbook and it serves me pretty well.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    trobertstroberts Posts: 702member
    HARD DRIVE CAPACITY! I have done a few iMovie projects and hard drive space is something you need to keep an eye on so you do not run out while working on a project. I suggest person "A" and you get external drives to work on and store your projects because:



    1 - 7200 rpm drives vs. 5400 for PowerBook and 4200 for iBook

    2 - Larger capacity (500GB)



    -----

    NOTE: the following tidbit came from iDVD help:



    Before burning your DVD, be sure you have at least twice as much free space available on your hard disk as your project uses, to allow for encoding and burning. Check the DVD Capacity meter in the Status pane of the Customize drawer to determine the size of your project. For example, if your project uses 4.0 GB, you need at least 8.0 GB of free space on your hard disk.

    -----



    If you get an external hard drive make sure it has FireWire 400 because all Macs have that port, but the 15" PowerBook has a FireWire 800 port so if "A" gets that model then "A" might want to look into getting a drive with that connection. Your best bet would be to get a LaCie drive because they have a wide selection of external drives with dual (FireWire 400/800) and triple (USB 2.0, FireWire 400/800) interfaces.



    http://www.lacie.com/products/family.htm?id=10007



    They even sell a hard drive designed specifically for the Mac mini. The first link is to the page and the second shows what the drive looks like under the Mac mini. You can even stack mulitple drives on each other.



    http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10476







    Since you can't get a 12" iBook with a SuperDrive you might want to get an external DVD R/RW drive from LaCie:



    http://www.lacie.com/products/family.htm?id=10008



    A few of their drives come with LightScribe. If you have never heard of LightScribe check out their web site.



    http://www.lightscribe.com/index.aspx
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