Mac mini used for video editing and such?

...Would a Mac Mini be a GOOD investment for video & photo editing?

In a word, "no."

For those CPU/graphics-intensive operations, a MacBookPRO would be ideal...max'd out in RAM, and with 7200RPM internal and external drives.

Just my opinion...I could be wrong. I own a mini, and would never expect it to perform as you need it to.

I've used all sorts of Macs, including G4 minis, for video work and while the slower systems are not ideal due to such things as 5400rpm hard drives, they work more than sufficiently with software such as iMovie and Final Cut Express. Indeed, Final Cut Express makes somewhat less demand on the system than iMovie and thus tends to run rather more smoothly. I have Photoshop Elements (6) running on a couple of 1.83 minis and it works well.

Not that the mini is faster for such work than an equivalent MacBook - they typically share much in the way of hardware so their performance is broadly comparable - but a Mac mini certainly makes a perfectly adequate platform for this kind of work.

Whether it is satisfactory, and thus a good purchase for you to make, depends on how intensively you work. At professional level, the mini would not be a good choice simply because it will not be sufficiently smooth and seamless to use. But for amateur level use, it should work pretty well - particularly with the RAM maxxed out.

Given that I also use a 1GHz G4 power mac for video work (it's quite slow but certainly still serviceable for the task) I would suggest you look at possible reasons your MacBook seems slow and perhaps attempt to resolve that before considering a new system to replace it however.

No.

The current Mac mini is marginally, at best, more powerful than your MacBook - it's using a slightly faster processor on exactly the same motherboard architecture.

They're an extremely out-of-date product, and I suggest you look elsewhere; for example, have you considered upgrading your MacBook? Some extra RAM, bigger faster hard drive, and you might be surprised.

No.

While it's been rightly said that the mini is not appreciably faster than a MacBook based on broadly the same architecture, it's a bizarre conclusion that that makes it unsuitable for video editing work. It's not the best system for video to be sure, but users have been running various versions of iMovie, Final Cut Express and Pro and Avid and Adobe video apps on Macs that are much slower than the current minis, and had little in the way of complaint while doing so.

As such, while for this user, if a MacBook is insufficient for the task a Mac mini is hardly likely to be better (excepting that it seems likely the MacBook has issues preventing it from delivering best performance) in more general terms the current Mac mini is perfectly capable of this kind of use. It may be somewhat out of date in architectural terms, but then by and large the software is not exactly cutting edge (or particularly demanding) either. And while the mini is the bottom-end system and thus the least capable of any current Mac, it has performance that is broadly the same (actually marginally better) than a first generation G5 dual processor powermac, many of which are still in daily use in professional video production environments.

For this particular user, there seems little doubt that examining the reasons the MacBook seems insufficient is a better place to start than spending money on replacing it, but in the wider sense it would be wrong to give the impression that the Mac mini is not suited to this sort of use.

+For this particular user, there seems little doubt that examining the reasons the MacBook seems insufficient is a better place to start than spending money on replacing it, but in the wider sense it would be wrong to give the impression that the Mac mini is not suited to this sort of use.+

Following up on this, it would be helpful to know from the original poster how much RAM is in the MacBook, what size hard drive it has, and how full the hard drive is.

If the MacBook has less than the 2gig maximum RAM or if the hard drive is almost full -- then upping the RAM to 2 Gig, and replacing the hard drive with a 7200-RPM 320Gig hard drive (both operations can be easily done by an end-user) might make a substantial improvement in performance for a modest cost.

Additionally, if the original poster is running legacy, pre-Intel versions of Adobe or Microsoft software, then the Rosetta emulation which this invokes is going to seriously impact performance regardless of the computer he is using.

I agree with Andy - the Mini can be very appropriate - depending on your needs and your budget. Remember 'The Producer's Maxim: Faster, Better, Cheaper - pick TWO'. For the money I really like my Mini.
I edit video professionally on PC systems at work and would love to have the Mini there instead - but my editing is not really all that demanding on the computers. So it depends on what your needs are. They work fine for me, and so would a Mini.
What kind of editing are your doing and what problems - in addition to the speed issues - are you having with the Macbook? What part is slow? Are you compressing a lot of video? That can take forever even on fast systems.
Cha-ching. As you mentioned money is an issue. Broadly speaking a Mini would give you an all around update for the least money. Since you do not need it to be mobile, it also gives you some nice cheap expansions options - bigger faster external hard drives being key among them. I run my whole system off a Newer Mini Stack, but any external 7200 HD plus some powered USB/Firewire hubs would help.
I have to say - anecdotally - I seem to spend more time looking at spinning beach balls on my 2.2 Ghz MB than on my much older 1.4 Ghz Mini. Don't know why, perhaps it is the faster drive. Until recently they both had the same RAM.
If you cannot spend a lot on a top of the line computer, then the Mini can be a competent substitute on certain kinds of jobs.

It cracks me up when people say that 2 year old Mac is SO bad for video editing. People have been editing videos on Macs for over 10 years. Think about the systems they were using back in the day. Why is it never good enough for people? Go ahead and buy the latest and greatest Mac out there. In two years you'll be complaining that it's SO slow... Ugh.

I'll take that slow MacBook off your hands any time. 🙂

Hi guys,

Just thought I'd like to clear up that my point was not that the mini is a bad platform for video editing, but that in this case, the original poster should not be looking at buying one as an upgrade from his MacBook, as there simply will not be any appreciable difference.

Both machines are equally - and substantially - capable editing machines; this is exactly the reason that it would be more advisable to try to get to the bottom of the MacBook's perceived "slowness", which would undoubtedly cost far less for the same net result as buying the newer machine.


-Posted by someone who still edits his motorsport videos on a PowerMac G4. 🙂