imovieHD and iDVD upgrade questions
My problem: iMovieHD and iDVD convert and render assets at a snail's pace.
My situation: I'm currently running a core duo 1.66ghz mac mini (CD) w/2gb ddr2-667.
My purchasing outlook: I have people coming from the states in 4 months or so, and then monthly thereafter, but I'm not returning to the states until at least '08 myself. I trust the people coming to bring me anything I purchase - but it has to be plane-transportable w/o overages. I forget the exact limit currently, but it's about 25kg per bag and there are size limits to it too.
I'm considering either a next gen macbook, figuring that the core 2 duo is already a faster video rendering machine, I'd even consider a new macbook pro if the video memory helps at all (other than freeing a few mb of system memory from not having to share).
I MIGHT be able to squeeze a 24 inch imac core 2 duo refurb over - figuring that a) the video memory may not help - and of course the hard disk performance may play a factor.
Thoughts?
Anyone know how much, if any, the dedicated video memory makes?
My situation: I'm currently running a core duo 1.66ghz mac mini (CD) w/2gb ddr2-667.
My purchasing outlook: I have people coming from the states in 4 months or so, and then monthly thereafter, but I'm not returning to the states until at least '08 myself. I trust the people coming to bring me anything I purchase - but it has to be plane-transportable w/o overages. I forget the exact limit currently, but it's about 25kg per bag and there are size limits to it too.
I'm considering either a next gen macbook, figuring that the core 2 duo is already a faster video rendering machine, I'd even consider a new macbook pro if the video memory helps at all (other than freeing a few mb of system memory from not having to share).
I MIGHT be able to squeeze a 24 inch imac core 2 duo refurb over - figuring that a) the video memory may not help - and of course the hard disk performance may play a factor.
Thoughts?
Anyone know how much, if any, the dedicated video memory makes?
Comments
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Anyone know how much, if any, the dedicated video memory makes?
How much free hard drive space do you have?
Usually 20gb+
Usually? What do you mean by usually? However, even if you have 20 GB free, then you probably don't have enough free space. A rule of thumb is that you should maintain 10% of your hard drive as free space. In terms of free space, you are in good shape if your hard drive is 200 GB or less. However, if your hard drive is less than 200 GB, then it is probably too small for editing HD video.
Usually? What do you mean by usually? However, even if you have 20 GB free, then you probably don't have enough free space. A rule of thumb is that you should maintain 10% of your hard drive as free space. In terms of free space, you are in good shape if your hard drive is 200 GB or less. However, if your hard drive is less than 200 GB, then it is probably too small for editing HD video.
By usually I mean most of the time. I often download things off of the itunes store, or download large files overnight and then have to move them off my mini to the NAS box. Unfortunately the mac mini I have only has a 80gb hard disk, though I'm rarely, if ever, editing HD video - most of my performance issues are with non HD video. Even with 1/4 of my hard disk free typically it's still slow - very slow. For example I ripped a few episodes of robot chicken for a friend using handbrake - taking them from the dvd to the hard disk in avi format (4 episodes, and Robot Chicken tends to have short episodes...15-20 or so minutes including credits) - in an hour or so. Then going into iDVD for example, I select magic dvd or create new dvd, reflection black (or white...I'm fond of both), then create 4 movies in the menu, drop each movie into the new movie slots, rename them, and then auto-fill the menu items - then it doesn't matter if I burn to disc, or if I select to make an .img file - it takes hours to encode just the menu assets alone - the actual encoding for the main part of the disc is a little slow, but not horrible.
It might be worth noting that I often select best quality option because it saves on disc space vs best performance.
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It might be worth noting that I often select best quality option because it saves on disc space vs best performance.
You cannot expect "best quality" to be fast on anybody's computer.
You cannot expect "best quality" to be fast on anybody's computer.
Yeah but having to run it overnight just to process a menu is goofy - period. Either something is fub'd with my set up or ilife's DVD maker and some of the imovie importing functions are just too slow on the current hardware and I'm interested in seeing what specs might help.