'Bout to buy a new Mac. I edit small 720p HD movies.

[motomac]

Hey guys! Im new here to the macrumors forum, but I am a long-time mac user. My first mac was the 'ol Performa. Then I had a 7300/180, Blue&White G3 350 tower, blueberry 233 iMac, and finally a graphite 400 iMac.

Needless to say, i'm a mac-for-lif'er!!


Ok, now to the questions.
I want to get a new mac (or a slightly used one). I would use it mostly for storing and lightly editing photos, web use, website building, and some HDV editing. I have a 720p JVC-HD1 prosumer camera that I have about 5 hours of video that i'm ready to edit, so I want a machine that can handle a lill bit of HD editing. I'm not interested in the medium to top of the line Mac Pro 3Ghz cause I won't EVER even come close to utilizing the full potential of that machine.

I don't believe the 2Ghz newest mac mini will even handle the HDV content without dropping the frame rate. Plus it doesn't have FW 800 or eSata, so thats out. I am thinking that the 2.4Ghz 24" iMac would work well for my application. Even If it takes 12 minutes on an imac to compress a 720p movie that would take only 5 on the quad core MP, i am still fine with that, cause im not trying to make money with it.

So, I am really looking at getting a 24" 2.4Ghz AlumiMAC. Is the 2.8Ghz Extreme version alot faster? I want to get a bare bones model and use the extra dough for a OWC 4G ram upgrade, and a 500 or 750 gig FW800 external drive. I went to the local Apple reseller and fell in love with the 24" iMac. It is beautiful! They had it hooked up to an Apple TV system, and I almost cried.

Does it sound like Im thinking right? Can a mac mini handle the HD editing? ( I searched the forum for an answer to that without getting a satisfactory answer.)

Thanks for the help guys! Already I love this site!!

 

[flopticalcube]

If you want the 24" 2.8 go for a stock 2.4GHz and buy it online with the option to upgrade the CPU to 2.8 (cost $250). You can also add the 500G HD at that time (cost $100).

 

[Eidorian]

My Mac mini Core Duo handles 720p and 1080p viewing and encoding just fine.

I agree with the lack of inputs and a slight worry about the hard drive.

Just follow flopticalcube's purchasing suggestion to get the 2.8 GHz processor.

 

[motomac]

My Mac mini Core Duo handles 720p and 1080p viewing and encoding just fine.

I agree with the lack of inputs and a slight worry about the hard drive.

Just follow flopticalcube's purchasing suggestion to get the 2.8 GHz processor.

Do you have a code duo or the newer core 2 duo? whats your processor rated at? ANd when you say encoding, are you talking about importing, editing, and exporting/burning 1080i/p?

Flopticalcube, thanks for the tip on the 2.8 upgrade on the apple site. I think i may do it that way.

 

[Eidorian]

Do you have a code duo or the newer core 2 duo? whats your processor rated at? ANd when you say encoding, are you talking about importing, editing, and exporting/burning 1080i/p?

Flopticalcube, thanks for the tip on the 2.8 upgrade on the apple site. I think i may do it that way.

Core Duo 1.83 GHz.

I've imported, exported, and burned.

I'm not an editor sadly. I'm just a content pusher.

 

[ChrisA]

...
I want to get a new mac (or a slightly used one). I would use it mostly for storing and lightly editing photos, web use, website building, and some HDV editing.

The problem with the new iMac is the screen. Apple went cheap and put in a pretty low quality LCD panel. It is not good for critical color work. Most people don't care and don't bother to calibrate their monitors but if you do, the iMac is not the best choice. Lot's of threads on this. You can search and see what others have written.

 

[motomac]

The problem with the new iMac is the screen. Apple went cheap and put in a pretty low quality LCD panel. It is not good for critical color work. Most people don't care and don't bother to calibrate their monitors but if you do, the iMac is not the best choice. Lot's of threads on this. You can search and see what others have written.

Well, what about adding an external dvi display to use for true color reproduction / pre-viewing, and using the stock display for regular use? Has anyone done this?

 

[JordanNZ]

The problem with the new iMac is the screen. Apple went cheap and put in a pretty low quality LCD panel. It is not good for critical color work. Most people don't care and don't bother to calibrate their monitors but if you do, the iMac is not the best choice. Lot's of threads on this. You can search and see what others have written.

Enough already.

This doesn't apply to the 24". Some people had issues with dodgy backlights.. But the panel itself is a very high quality.

They did not 'go cheap'.

 

[LethalWolfe]

The problem with the new iMac is the screen. Apple went cheap and put in a pretty low quality LCD panel. It is not good for critical color work. Most people don't care and don't bother to calibrate their monitors but if you do, the iMac is not the best choice. Lot's of threads on this. You can search and see what others have written.

To be fair unless you buy a b'cast quality monitor (I think Panasonic has some low-end ones in the $2-3k range) no LCD monitor is good for critical color work. The only exception to this that I know of is using the Matrox MXO w/a 23" ACD which will get you pretty close to a Sony HD CRT monitor from what I've read.


Lethal