new macmini and monitor option question

[mammothcar1]

Hi all,

You may rember me from my other my other posts, such as, ' MB or MBP?' (Spoken in the voice of Troy Mclure from the Simpsons)

Anyway, the new Macmini.

Im a novice photographer, with a very old laptop. (No firewire, no USB 2.0)

I want a to edit photographs and video. Nothing in 3d video, but I don't want to be pulling my hair out, or waiting for the cows to come home, trying to edit video, adding sound, and burning it to a DVD .

So, two questions;
Is there enough computer there to edit videos, add sound, and burn to DVD? I don't play video games so that's not an issue.

Which monitor manuf. would you recommend? I don't mind spending some bucks here to get a good monitor for photography.
From what I've read, Apple monitors are over priced, and are made by someone elsy anyway.



Thanks for your feedback!

[MaxxuM]

Hummm, the old Mac Mini could run iMovie without too much lag. I would venture a guess that the new ones are better suited. However, what are your expectations and what type of video are we talking about?

If you're not going to be working with more than one or two video tracks or large video fx then the Mini will do fine. It will take longer to render video to be sure, but it will work. My MBP 2.5GHz w/ 4GB RAM turns HOT and struggles when I toss a SmoothCam effect on a clip and will spend two hours on 20m of video. On my Mac Pro it hardly takes any time at all (a few minutes).

If you plan on using Final Cut Express (excellent program btw) then the Mini probably isn't going to be for you. Half of the video fx will clog most slower computers and laptops.

If you're not in any hurry I would just save up and get the iMac 24".

As far as screen's, there are just too many good ones out there. For the budget minded I would go with an LG screen (which btw Apple uses :) ).

[wlescall]

Also get as much RAM as possible. There are aftermarket kits that will allow you to open up the Mini and add RAM. The Mini is reported to have a SATA DVD drive, so if you were so inclined you could remove it and put in a 2nd hard drive.

For video editing on the Mini, I suggest you get an external firewire 800 drive. It will be MUCH faster than USB 2.0. iMovie HD comes with the Mini.

As for monitors, you want an IPS or PVA monitors as they have 8 bits per color channel. A tip off is the viewing angle - IPS & PVA monitors have very wide viewing angles usually listed as 178 degrees horizontal and vertical.

[mammothcar1]

Thanks for the feedback MaxxuM and wlescall.

It's difficult to determine on Apples website a side by side comparison of the Mini and the Imac. But after looking at it again, the Imac may be the better option.

At first, I thought the Mini was the better choice, because the I could then source a better monitor for less money, but the Imac seems to be the faster of the two with a few more options. (24" model)

With regard to my video asperations. Right now I just have video of me in my VW at track events, etc. So we're not talking Marti Scorsese. Just video I would like to practice editing on. (Without the pulling out the hair part!)


It's too bad the Apple doesn't offer the Imac hardware, and then I could outsource the monitor. (They don't right?)
At first I was thinking MBP. But I'm not really one to lug a laptop anywhere, so I didn't want to pay a premium for the portability and ruggedness of a laptop that I may never use as a laptop.

You know, The 'Man' has us consumers figured out to a degree. Computer companies, like the auto industry, realize that we comparison shop the products of the company. So when I look at the base model Imac, I see that for a couple hundred bucks more, I can get a better 24" model. Now for just a little bit more, I can upgrade that. So now I start to notice the the price of an upgraded Imac is getting close to the base MacPro....

And the 'paralysis by analysis' starts all over again!

[wlescall]

A couple of articles that may help you:
iMac Value Equation (http://lowendmac.com/musings/09mm/2009-imac-value-equation.html)

Mac Mini Value Equation (http://lowendmac.com/musings/09mm/2009-mac-mini-value.html)

Something to remember, the nVidia GeForce 9400M uses system RAM for video.

The faster 24" iMacs have video cards with GDDR3 memory. This will allow some speed up when Snow Leopard arrive. Open CL (in Snow Leopard) is supposed to make use of the unused cycles of the GPU for generalized computing.

[mammothcar1]

Thanks for the links!