Is 16GB RAM enough for iMovie?

[mwhite]

I bought a 16GB RAM/512GB SSD M4 Mac mini (luckily before the price increases and on the Education store to boot), and want to know, from people who would know, is 16GB RAM enough to work in iMovie comfortably? I won't do it very often but I might. Someone had suggested before I ordered that I get a 24/512 machine (not for iMovie use, but just because they said my machine would be more "future proof", which I considered, but budget wouldn't allow, so went with the 16/512. Will I be frustrated with 16GB using iMovie?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

For casual use, 16GB will do fine with iMovie.

Just avoid parallel-running memory-intensive apps along side it.

 

[mwhite]

For casual use, 16GB will do fine with iMovie.

Just avoid parallel-running memory-intensive apps along side it.

Thank you!

 

[iHorseHead]

Boy, the last time I used iMovie was iMovie 08…
Even Final Cut Pro works well on it.

 

[mwhite]

Boy, the last time I used iMovie was iMovie 08…
Even Final Cut Pro works well on it.

Final Cut Pro works well on an M4 Mac mini with 16 GB of RAM? That surprises me.

On a side note, I was pissed off when Apple removed Audio Rubber Banding from iMovie starting with iMovie ‘08. That and a couple of other features. Apple calimed that it was to “simplify” the user interface, but we all know that was an Apple Greed Bold Faced Lie. They really removed those features to gimp iMovie in order to push people into buying FCP.

 

[maflynn]

Final Cut Pro works well on an M4 Mac mini with 16 GB of RAM? That surprises me,

Apple says so.

 

[iHorseHead]

Final Cut Pro works well on an M4 Mac mini with 16 GB of RAM? That surprises me.

On a side note, I was pissed off when Apple removed Audio Rubber Banding from iMovie starting with iMovie ‘08. That and a couple of other features. Apple calimed that it was to “simplify” the user interface, but we all know that was an Apple Greed Bold Faced Lie. They really removed those features to gimp iMovie in order to push people into buying FCP.

It even works well on MacBook Neo.
iMovie even worked on my MacBook with 1GB of RAM and iMovie 09 - 11 were awesome.

 

[dandeco]

Final Cut Pro works well on an M4 Mac mini with 16 GB of RAM? That surprises me.

On a side note, I was pissed off when Apple removed Audio Rubber Banding from iMovie starting with iMovie ‘08. That and a couple of other features. Apple calimed that it was to “simplify” the user interface, but we all know that was an Apple Greed Bold Faced Lie. They really removed those features to gimp iMovie in order to push people into buying FCP.

I generally use an M1 MacBook Air with 8-core graphics and 16 GB of RAM, and Final Cut Pro runs VERY well on it.

Like I've said, that M1 Air even slightly outperforms that late 2019 16" MacBook Pro with 2.6 GHz Intel 6-core i7 processor, 32 GB of RAM and an AMD Radeon Pro 5300M graphics card with 4 GB dedicated VRAM! It still boggles the mind to think about that...
With that said, I currently have the M1 Air sent to a specialist to have the SSD upgraded from the original 512 GB one to a 1 TB drive, to get more years usage from it, so I am typing this on that 2019 MacBook Pro.

I remember how there was much rejoicing when iMovie '11 brought back rubberband volume editing, and it's still in the current iMovie to this date, even with the software still being "simplified," but with that, iMovie is still great for really simple projects or for beginners.

 

[mwhite]

I remember how there was much rejoicing when iMovie '11 brought back rubberband volume editing, and it's still in the current iMovie to this date, even with the software still being "simplified," ...

Is it? I haven't had a Mac for many years, only an iPad, and so haven't used iMovie in years. Can you actually adjust audio levels by dragging points on a line that represents the audio track up and down? That's the rubber banding of audio I remember, it was so simple and intuitive to use...and then...it was gone.

 

[dandeco]

Is it? I haven't had a Mac for many years, only an iPad, and so haven't used iMovie in years. Can you actually adjust audio levels by dragging points on a line that represents the audio track up and down? That's the rubber banding of audio I remember, it was so simple and intuitive to use...and then...it was gone.

Yep, you can! You use the "R" key to switch the cursor to select the region of the video you want to manually adjust the volume of. Tap "R" again to bring the cursor back to normal, and then you should be able to adjust only that part of a clip's volume.

This definitely gives iMovie an advantage over Microsoft's ClipChamp for Windows.

 

[mwhite]

Yep, you can! You use the "R" key to switch the cursor to select the region of the video you want to manually adjust the volume of. Tap "R" again to bring the cursor back to normal, and then you should be able to adjust only that part of a clip's volume.
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This definitely gives iMovie an advantage over Microsoft's ClipChamp for Windows.

Well, if that's the case, that's good news. Does the iPad version of iMovie have it too?