mac mini and final cut pro

N

nichemarketdigital

New member
Has anyone used a mac mini w/final cut pro 4.5 or 5? Will FCP 5 work on a mac mini? What would be it's limitations? My powerbook was dropped on a shoot and no longer works. I'm in the middle of a project and i need to keep my deadline. I need a cheap replacement and was wondering if anyone has any thoughts or guidance on using a mac mini.
Thanks
 
I have a mac mini at the office and I would not recommend it. It will work with FCP, but be prepared for long render times especially if you dont max it out with ram. Even if your in a bind, shell out a little more for something you could use for a while. Ours is maxed out with ram and still barely runs idvd if that tells you anything.
 
Do you think there's a chance I can use the mac mini to cut HDV? No heavy motion graphics, but color correction will be done.The project was shot on HDV. Would maybe a 733 dual or 867 dual work?
 
And I quote:
System Requirements
Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G4 (500MHz or faster) or G5 processor; HD features require 1GHz or faster single or dual processors
512MB of physical RAM; HD features require 1GB of RAM or more (2GB recommended)
AGP or PCI Express graphics card
Mac OS X v10.3.9 or Mac OS X v10.4 (or later)
QuickTime 7.0 or later
1GB of disk space required to install application; additional 10GB required to install all optional templates, loops, content and tutorials (may be installed on separate disks)
DVD drive for installation

Unfortunately, HDV falls under the HD requirements.
Mac mini is *barely* in - and you're still only going to get 1 GB of ram in it. And you will need to buy an external drive that runs at 7200 rpm - and you will get sub-minimal performance.
To be realistic, you should probably aim towards at least a 17" iMac w/ 1.5 gb+ of ram - even getting a refurb and upgrading the ram from somewhere like crucial could work.
But don't underbuy just because you're in a pinch. You won't get getting that $800 back once the project is done, and you will want to use that computer again. Right now for $849 there is a iMac G5 1.8ghz at the apple store. Add a 1 gig chip for about $150 - You're at $1k and have a useable machine.

All my thoughts, of course.
 
g

g

won't the mini still run all the programs. it will just be a bit slow on some stuff like the dvd authoring and colour correcting stuff.
 
I have a Mac Mini, I'm using just iMovie HD for its simplicity and the college wants me to learn how to use that first *rolls eyes*. For iMovie HD, the Mac Mini works great during renders and previews of titles and effects. However, it took about 45-minutes the other day to render a best quality h.264 five minute short with opening/closing credits and minus the main audio as it was a silent film. I was going to add a Sonic Fire Pro soundtrack to it so I had to make a rendered version of the film first. I didn't know that I could just make a low quality version of the film to monitor soundtrack performance >.<, but I learned that if I ever needed to render a full quality version of my film, I'd be in trouble.

Render times are going to kill you, but it's useful for what it does. I also switch back and forth between iMovie HD and Adobe Premiere 6.5 on my PC for final editing and some music/sound effects, so I have a little more flexibility. If you're wanting high quality effects and massive color correction, I'd recommend something a little faster than the Mac Mini.

Another downside is that you're kind of forced into buying an external HDD Mac Mini add-on because not only are your USB 2.0 ports limited, but you also only get one firewire port.

Regarding the ibook, I don't think you'd be much better off, the performance is about the same.
 
thisiswells said:
it'll be fine for the basics (trimming, editing, simple effects) but for advanced users who need color correction on every shot and heavy, layered motion graphics, the processing speed of the Mini can be irritating. It will, fortunately, do a realtime 2:3:2:3 pulldown insertion on the DV output to tape, whereas other slower Mac's can't. I have a 1.25 Mini with 512MB for capturing tapes. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Will it do the color correction and layered graphics? or Will it just be slow?
 
That's great information, Thank you. Do you have the 1.25GHZ or the 1.42GHZ? Do you think and 867 powerbook or a 867 dual G4 will be a better bet? I can get one of these within the same budget.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top