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Mac Mini Released
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James Craner said:
I agree with the above, but with something to think about: Tiger will be released May/June or so this year, with an asking price of $129. If you can hold out a while longer, that's a good chunk of the price of the Mac Mini. My plan is to wait until Tiger is released, and get Tiger, iLife, etc all together, which makes the hardware portion of the computer very reasonably priced..
nightowl said:
If you don't really need a new computer now, that sounds like a great plan. Having Tiger pre-installed, means one less thing that you will have to accomplish.
Here is an interesting read that I came across.
http://lowendmac.com/lite/05/0113.html
wdlove said:
I don't know what to think of that. It does make a good point, Apple should include a low end LCD.
I sware, people are born Microsexual, or Macrosexual. Serious. Some of my friends would give anything to own one of these, and some others can't stand Mac. Me? I'm a PC user (who's hating it, BTW.
). This is what I've been waiting for for longer then I can remember. I just hope that this doesn't turn into another cube situation. BTW- I'm a true born Macrosexual.
Hoffer said:
I hope you succeed!
However,
WE NEED TO MAKE IT CRYSTAL CLEAR THAT THE MAC MINI
IS NOT DESIGNED FOR INTERNAL USER UPGRADES!
It is highly recommended that you get what you need at time of purchase.
This does not mean that you could not take your Mac mini to The Apple Store for some upgrades.
Hopefully our good friends at http://www.xlr8yourmac.com
will explore the possibility of future upgrades as soon as they can get their
hands on one.
EDITED:
WOW THAT WAS FAST! WHERE THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY
CHECK THE LINK ON THE NEXT PAGE ON HOW TO OPEN YOUR MAC MINI
-THE MOVIE <">
3Memos said:
I suppose this is correct -- but then again, a 2.5 GHz G5 would be best.
I currently do video and audio editing (and DVD creation) on a 500 Mhz G4 PowerBook. My point is that the mini should be able to do even more than my PowerBook -- and it has the same inputs (2 USB and 1 FW).
My own view is that if you don't need a new monitor, a mini would be an affordable way to go Mac.
numediaman said:
RAM expansion and 3.5" HD support are essential for video work. Since the Mac mini only has 40-80GB hard drive space, you won't be able to store more than a couple hours of DV video on it. Plus if you capture DV, you lose a firewire port, especially in conjunction with an external FW drive. The iMac has 2 firewire ports, enabling easy configuration of camcorder and drives.
Plus G5 processor has a fast front side bus enabling more real-time effects, especially in use with FCP and DVD Studio Pro.
I have a 120 gig USB2.0 external drive I plan on hooking up to my new Mac mini. I bought a 12" PB 2 years ago(when they first came out). I kick myself for not getting the Superdrive. When I get my Mac mini, I plan on putting good use to iMovie and iDVD. So, I'll hook my Sony camcorder to firewire and copy the DV to my USB2.0 drive.
I tried to create a DVD of a friend's wedding 2 years back on my PC. I worked on that thing for hours and just couldn't get it to come out right. I have absolute confidence that iMovie and iDVD will get it done right. I think I'll try and get the disk done again for my friend. I need the practice beause my sister is getting married this summer and I'd like to do a DVD for her.
I'm also thinking about buying a new digital camera so I can get into using iPhoto more. I didn't know about the photo books you could order through iPhoto. I saw Jobs talk about that during his keynote. That actually got me pretty excited. I'd also like to do a photo book for my sister's wedding this summer.
I tried to create a DVD of a friend's wedding 2 years back on my PC. I worked on that thing for hours and just couldn't get it to come out right. I have absolute confidence that iMovie and iDVD will get it done right. I think I'll try and get the disk done again for my friend. I need the practice beause my sister is getting married this summer and I'd like to do a DVD for her.
I'm also thinking about buying a new digital camera so I can get into using iPhoto more. I didn't know about the photo books you could order through iPhoto. I saw Jobs talk about that during his keynote. That actually got me pretty excited. I'd also like to do a photo book for my sister's wedding this summer.
For those into serious video editing,
Just thought I should post the minimum system requirements
for Final Cut Pro HD
Macintosh computer with 350MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor and AGP graphics card
Mac OS X v10.3.2 or later
QuickTime 6.5 or later
384MB of RAM
For Soundtrack, 500MHz or faster single processor or 450MHz or faster dual processors;512MB of RAM recommended
For RT Extreme, single 500MHz or faster PowerPC G4 (550MHz for PowerBook G4) or any dual PowerPC G4 and 512MB of RAM
For DVCPRO HD, 1GHz or faster single or dual processors and 1GB of RAM
1GB of available disk space for application installation
5GB of disk space for Soundtrack content
9GB of disk space for LiveType content
DVD drive for installation
Just thought I should post the minimum system requirements
for Final Cut Pro HD
Macintosh computer with 350MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor and AGP graphics card
Mac OS X v10.3.2 or later
QuickTime 6.5 or later
384MB of RAM
For Soundtrack, 500MHz or faster single processor or 450MHz or faster dual processors;512MB of RAM recommended
For RT Extreme, single 500MHz or faster PowerPC G4 (550MHz for PowerBook G4) or any dual PowerPC G4 and 512MB of RAM
For DVCPRO HD, 1GHz or faster single or dual processors and 1GB of RAM
1GB of available disk space for application installation
5GB of disk space for Soundtrack content
9GB of disk space for LiveType content
DVD drive for installation
It's getting silly again - recommending an iMac for DV editing when there are plenty of people with G4s of consisderably less power than the Mini who have been running iMovie or Final Cut (Pro or Express versions) with absolutely no problems for a long time before the G5 existed.
While it's true that an iMac would provide better performance, it also costs more, and while it's true that the 4200rpm drive in the Mini has potential to degrade performance, I've noticed absolutely no issues with DV editing on my iBook G4 (800), and it's been used extensively for that purpose since I bought it, along with a G4 450 of October 1999 vintage. Rendering is a bit sluggish on both in comparison to a G5, but it's not crically so.
As for tying up the FW port with the DV camcorder - I'd suggest the answer to that is an external FW drive with a port to daisy-chain the camcorder - that arrangement works fine for me - though capturing directly to the internal HD instead hasn't proven problematic in the projects where that has been necessary.
The Mini is certainly not the powerhouse Mac that it would be nice for it to be, but let's not talk it down to the point where it becomes common currency that it is good for little more than email and a bit of casual web browsing, or bashing out a quick bit of typing.
And one more thing that's worth noting - at the rate that Macs typically hold their prices, people buying a Mini are not going to get severely burned if they then decide the system isn't right for them and want to sell it on. In itself, that could make it a great way to jump into a Mac without having to worry too much about whether it's as perfect as we all say it is!!
While it's true that an iMac would provide better performance, it also costs more, and while it's true that the 4200rpm drive in the Mini has potential to degrade performance, I've noticed absolutely no issues with DV editing on my iBook G4 (800), and it's been used extensively for that purpose since I bought it, along with a G4 450 of October 1999 vintage. Rendering is a bit sluggish on both in comparison to a G5, but it's not crically so.
As for tying up the FW port with the DV camcorder - I'd suggest the answer to that is an external FW drive with a port to daisy-chain the camcorder - that arrangement works fine for me - though capturing directly to the internal HD instead hasn't proven problematic in the projects where that has been necessary.
The Mini is certainly not the powerhouse Mac that it would be nice for it to be, but let's not talk it down to the point where it becomes common currency that it is good for little more than email and a bit of casual web browsing, or bashing out a quick bit of typing.
And one more thing that's worth noting - at the rate that Macs typically hold their prices, people buying a Mini are not going to get severely burned if they then decide the system isn't right for them and want to sell it on. In itself, that could make it a great way to jump into a Mac without having to worry too much about whether it's as perfect as we all say it is!!
BarfBag said:I don't know what to think of that. It does make a good point, Apple should include a low end LCD.
I sware, people are born Microsexual, or Macrosexual. Serious. Some of my friends would give anything to own one of these, and some others can't stand Mac. Me? I'm a PC user (who's hating it, BTW.
BTW- I'm a true born Macrosexual.
It think that the article is either a joke or satire. Just the usual pundit trying to tear down Apple. Apple has lowered the price of its keyboard and mouse. Now they should also offer an LCD to go with the Mac mini. I truly hope that you will decide to become a switcher.
za9ra22 said:
agree entirely - its practically the same spec as our PB - which was a top of the range all singing all dancing laptop just 12 months ago!
and from what i've read, initial response has been pretty favourable, mostly.
Iain
za9ra22 said:
I agree completely I have a 15" 1.5GHz powerbook with the standard 4200 rpm 80GB hard disk, I have created some 40 iMovie 1 1/2 hour iMovie DV projects capturing and then exporting to iDVD without any skipped frames. More recently competed a promotional video for the company that I work for using FCE, all using the powerbook, which has broadly the same performance as the Mac Mini. So quite frankly any home hobbyist movie creator does not need a faster HD or G5 processor to use iMovie or FCE effectively. I will agree that you do need a 80GB hard disk and maybe you will need an external firewire hard disk if you will be producing a lot of videos, but for most people creating dvd's for family and friends of kids birthday parties then the Mac Mini will be fine. Hell Apple used to sell a G3 iMac DV for home movie editing, the Mac Mini has way more power than that.
Don't get me wrong, more firewire ports, faster, larger hard disks and faster G5 processors all are useful with DV editing, particularly for power users, but for most home users I doubt if they will have any problems.
The processor is the real bottleneck in all video editing these days. A 4,200 RPM hdd is plently fast for the Mac mini. I'd love a 7,200 RPM drive because it would help with boot time and a number of other things. I've got a 10,000 RPM drive in my Dell and that thing flies!!!
Now, if they put a 4,200 RPM hdd with the dual 2.5 gigahertz G5, you might have something to complain about.
Now, if they put a 4,200 RPM hdd with the dual 2.5 gigahertz G5, you might have something to complain about.
pigbat said:
Maybe this will help. My son and I just finished producing a DVD for the school of his elementary school drama production using a 2 1/2 year old PowerBook G4 (800 MHz G4, 512MB Ram) to do all the editing in iMovie. We used an external 40GB Firewire drive to store the movie owing to the fact I don't own a digital camera and needed to use another system to digitize the video. The only operation we really noticed take time during editing was rendering the titles (20 - 30 seconds to render a rather lengthy scrolling cast list), but because the rendering is done in the background that didn't slow us down at all.
Now when it comes to encoding the DVD, that's another story. The powerbook didn't have a superdrive, so I took the hard disk to a lab dual processor 2GHz G5 tower to create the DVD. Even with all that horsepower, it took over an hour to encode the 40 minute video. That's the kind of process I'd run overnight if I had my own system.
Based on that experience, I wouldn't hesitate to use a Mac mini to do the same editing again. I just wouldn't expect to finish editing, pop the DVD out and throw it into my DVD player.
I should note this was our first attempt at video editing, and we never had to refer to any help or documentation. The ease of use of iMovie and iDVD more than made up for the time it took to encode the video.
Video encoding is slow. I sometimes rent DVDs and will rip the video to either DivX or use DVD Shrink to shrink the disk to a single layer DVD. Either of these takes time and I've got a 3.6 gigahertz Pentium 4. When I do the DivX, I use a 2-pass encode process which can take as long as an hour to do a 2 hour video. DVD Shrink takes just as long.
I used to do all my encoding as an overnight task on my old Dell. My new Dell has hyperthreading which finally allows for true multi-threading of processes. Encoding killed my old Dell. I couldn't even surf the web it slowed my PC down so much. I hardly notice the encoding is happening on my new Dell and stuff gets done quicker!!
I'm just saying that I expect my new Mac mini to take a while for creating a DVD. I'm assuming it has multi-threading also which is very nice. In fact, haven't Macs had it for years??
I used to do all my encoding as an overnight task on my old Dell. My new Dell has hyperthreading which finally allows for true multi-threading of processes. Encoding killed my old Dell. I couldn't even surf the web it slowed my PC down so much. I hardly notice the encoding is happening on my new Dell and stuff gets done quicker!!
I'm just saying that I expect my new Mac mini to take a while for creating a DVD. I'm assuming it has multi-threading also which is very nice. In fact, haven't Macs had it for years??
i've read about daisychaining fw devices in this thread
this requires two fw ports on the external HD right ? but i have problems location HD's with two of them ...
i seriously doubt that daisychaining works with an USB2 and firewire right ?
any good recommendations wiht 2 firewireports _and_ USB 2.0 connector ? or would buying an firewire switch etc. better alternative ...
any good combined firewire + USB2.0 HUBs out there ?
this requires two fw ports on the external HD right ? but i have problems location HD's with two of them ...
i seriously doubt that daisychaining works with an USB2 and firewire right ?
any good recommendations wiht 2 firewireports _and_ USB 2.0 connector ? or would buying an firewire switch etc. better alternative ...
any good combined firewire + USB2.0 HUBs out there ?
takao said:
Lacie do drives with 2 FW ports http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10384, they also do a D2 extreme that has FW400, FW800 and USB2 ports - I believe you can get FW400 to FW800 cables as FW800 is backwards compatible with FW400.
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10025
It's great to have this input from those more experienced with video editing.
We should however keep in mind that there is a price point where
upgrading the Mac mini too much takes you into G5 territory.
The primary concern for me is the value of expandability and connectivity.
IF the purchaser already has a good monitor, then one might consider
the G5 1.8 Ghz towers before considering the iMac G5.
Hopefully, we will see a drastic price drop in the single processor G5
soon. I'm thinking in terms of $999.00 as the correct starting price for this unit.
We should however keep in mind that there is a price point where
upgrading the Mac mini too much takes you into G5 territory.
The primary concern for me is the value of expandability and connectivity.
IF the purchaser already has a good monitor, then one might consider
the G5 1.8 Ghz towers before considering the iMac G5.
Hopefully, we will see a drastic price drop in the single processor G5
soon. I'm thinking in terms of $999.00 as the correct starting price for this unit.
Hoffer said:
i buy the "number of other things", but why do you need to reboot often? I only very occasionally do it on my systems, when I install something new, or if i really need to save the battery on the powerbook, and I need to save also the sleep light power.
A handful of seconds every several weeks don't seem something to be worried about
Don't panic said:
Hey, I just said it would boot faster. I never said I reboot often. I probably reboot my PowerBook once a week. I listed boot time because it was the first thing that came to mind. I'm sure i'll rarely boot my mini when it arrives also.
Now my Dell. That thing I reboot everyday. Windows needs a daily boot to clean out the cobwebs.
Hoffer,
The photo books are great. I've made 2 myself. Also, iMovie and iDVD will do a great job of producing a DVD for your sisters wedding. Just don't expect it to be all that fast on the Mini. I've got a Dual 2 G5 and DVD encoding still takes awhile.
The photo books are great. I've made 2 myself. Also, iMovie and iDVD will do a great job of producing a DVD for your sisters wedding. Just don't expect it to be all that fast on the Mini. I've got a Dual 2 G5 and DVD encoding still takes awhile.