Mac Mini, need some advice

D

Digital-Vortex

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Dec 11, 2001
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Hey all,

My brother does alot of video editing, its his job. And sadly as the Tech guy i get all the hassel when things go wrong. Well over the past years we have been useing PC's, and its just one issue after another. So i remember all the info of how Macs are better for video editing, and was wondering is this includes the Mini, We crrently run a windows network so we could get round the rather small hard drive easily enough. but is it actually a good idea?

I know ideally the PowerMacs would be better, but portability is a small requirment, and those powerbooks just cost!

Anyone got any info for me

Cheers
 
The mini isn't really geared toward heavy video editing work. Not that it can't do it, but a used dual powermac would be much better.
 
ZenPirate said:
The mini isn't really geared toward heavy video editing work. Not that it can't do it, but a used dual powermac would be much better.
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I think the limitation would be the hard drive speed on the mini. I mean, people were doing heavy duty video editing on 700MHz G4's a few years ago, there's no reason a Mini can't handle it. Maybe with an external firewire drive.

Obviously it won't be as fast as a G5, but it should get the job done.
 
not really..it takes a laptop 9.5mm 2.5" drive and they in general just aren't that fast..I was able to find a 60Gig 7200 RPM for about $150 on PriceWatch but the better option would be to get a nice big external drive and slap it in a FW enclosure...found a WD 250Gig 7200 drive on NewEgg for $142 and for about $40 you can get a good looking enclosure...as for the horsepower...put enough RAM in there and it should be fine....it won't like doing any graphic intense stuff but from what I have seen if you are editing video you don't need a workhorse for a vid card
 
Digital-Vortex said:
could i not just shove a nice new big hard drive in there?
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a nice new big hard drive? Would that fit? :)

I dont think a mini would be too horribly bad for video editing.. may be a tiny bit slow, but something to work with.. in my old film making class in high school we did video editing with an emac (painfully slow for doing that) and editing with a g4... (they got that less than a year ago..) needless to say i was fighting for the g4....

but thats not to say it cant be done.. how fast are the pcs you are currently using?
 
The PC's we use vary, since its all done at hom it varys from a 750mhz to 2GHz. the current system is 1GHz tho which has become the main system.
The PC's do work, its just they suck! SOOO many issues, we have recently started video rendering in safe mode just because it removes stutter.

Thanks for the input guys. il look into it a bit further and decide the best option
 
im willing to bet on the speed side of things a mini with a gig of ram would draw even if not beat the 2ghz p4, i was amazed at the speed of this little computer. it may not be a 300fps quake3 machine but hell, the processor is very capable. the graaphics card is what lets the gaming side down but as long as you arnt playing a fps its fine, world of warcraft is very playable on standard settings....
 
Get a G4. You can upgrade the hell out of it, cram it with hard drives, etc...

Firewire enclosures are a stop-gap measure, IMHO for data storage.

You might advance and decide to use programs like afterfx and motion, you'll want a decent graphics card. the G4 is easy to upgrade. It looks sweet. Get it.

speed of the internal hard drive isn't that important, its WAY more important that you not be capturing to your boot and applications drive - it needs a dedicated drive. Firewire is fine, but it annoyed me.

I edit video every day on a 933 mhz G4. It serves me fine. I also produced/edited my own COPS-style tv show which was laced with effects (lots of face blurring.... LOTS of it). Then it became painful come render time - but it was still completely doable.
 
Methodical said:
Get a G4. You can upgrade the hell out of it, cram it with hard drives, etc...
Click to expand...

I think I would like to do this. Can you help me figure out how to Ebay a G4 and end up with one I can upgrade to fast dual CPUs?

Thanks

B
 
Honestly, just try to get one with a 133 mhz bus. They are all dual-capable, typically come in the cooler-looking cases (such as the MDD and quicksilver models), and are recent-tech. The 133 bus model that comes in the old style case is the digital audio (these are codenames for the motherboards).

Hop on ebay.

heres a dual 800
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=51034&item=5749167745&rd=1

probably be sold by the time you see this.

Anyway, you get the idea.

btw MDD stands for metal drive door.
 
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I have seen some go for much less. I was thinking if I could buy one for $300 or something with a single CPU then I could upgrade to a dual 1.4 or something.

I read that there was some program that you could run on them to determine if it could run dual... But on Ebay the 133 bus is the key? What would be the slowest CPU I could get for upgrade purposes?

Or point me toward a source.

Thanks

B
 
becuase the system bus on a G4 is so choked up, the bus speed is the limiting factor.

The Quicksilver macs are IMHO the best looking mac ever made. The bottom one was a 733 Mhz model. DONT get one of these; they didnt include any L3 cache which is very important on G4's, it helps the slow system bus problem. Get anything higher than that that has at least 1 Mb of L3 cache, some models have 2 MB in them, and they are the schiznit.

You want to be looking for any anything made after the digital audio series, either the Quicksilver or the Mirror Drive Door Models. The MDD's have a 167 Mhz system bus, the QS's have 133. The single cpu 1.25 Ghz models are super cheap right now due to the intro of the mini. The duals will hold their value but all the single CPU machines are gonna go down.

Apple always skimps on the RAM and the Video card. The hot lick for a G4 is all the Geforce 4Ti's that have appeared on Ebay for decent prices, these are the best vid card for a 4x AGP G4.

The best CPU upgrade company at the moment is probabvly gigadesigns. I ve heard nothing but praise about their stuff.

Heres a example of a MDD unit.

MDD Unit

Here's what a Quicksilver looks like:

Quicksilver example

hope this helps a bit
 
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i used to edit movies on an iMac DV (500mhz g3). a mini can surely hang. get it, try the mac os then move on to bigger and better things as you see fit.
 
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