Base Mac Mini M1 model for video editing?

[phrehdd]

After playing with an 8gb m1 for a while and stress testing it, I feel you can do a LOT more with 8gb on m1 than people think.

For example I loaded up a Logic project that was 9.5 gb ram on its own according to activity monitor (remember this is 8gb ram total machine) let it play on a loop, opened 20 YouTube tabs in safari, and exported a 40gb Final Cut Pro project at the same time. Memory pressure was yellow, there were a few gigs of swap, but Logic never stopped playing and the fcp export didn’t even take much longer than normal. Everything kept working.

If you don’t look at activity monitor you won’t even notice the difference. The 8gb models are on sale so cheap right now, you can pick one up at Costco and then when you finally reach that point that you think it’s not enough for you, trade it in to Apple and buy the next big thing

Or at least that’s how I’m convincing myself that I’m happy with the money saved. And if it just works it just works, can’t really argue with that. If it slows me down I may change my mind.

Interesting. I have 16/512. I have 27 tabs in Chrome (Gave up on Safari eating up RAM) and a few apps open and there are times with there are pauses and one can definitely tell there is a small issue here. I honestly don't know why anyone would recommend running minimum on these machines when newer software will come out and more that will test the levels of stress on a given system. A good hint is Apple on some items starts with a new minimum of 16 gig or RAM. We really can't fully future proof as Apple made sure we had to ditch machines and buy all new but we can certainly do well to make them last a few years and remain relevant.

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Isn’t chrome a way bigger ram hog than Safari?

 

[phrehdd]

Isn’t chrome a way bigger ram hog than Safari?

Fair question - however, I have Safari, Chrome, and Brave. Safari was going crazy with consumption. In fact, this site using Safari showed over 2 gigs of RAM being used. Chrome isn't exactly great either but I have far less issues of pages getting stuck and pauses and more. Let's just say they all suck just some more than others.

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Fair question - however, I have Safari, Chrome, and Brave. Safari was going crazy with consumption. In fact, this site using Safari showed over 2 gigs of RAM being used. Chrome isn't exactly great either but I have far less issues of pages getting stuck and pauses and more. Let's just say they all suck just some more than others.

Hmm maybe they fixed that though by now? I know there was a memory leak issue that they patched up at one point. I haven’t been having any memory problems in Safari, yet anyway.


Anyway I’m very surprised by the 8g memory performance.

If I don’t look at the memory pressure graph in activity monitor, I don’t even notice a difference. Everything works as usual. Whereas on an intel Mac you definitely notice it when you’re out of ram. I don’t disagree that 16 is always better than 8, but with some of the deals retailers have on 8g models right now, you’re looking at spending minimum $300 more for that other 8 gb of ram, and you have to special order it.

 

[zerozoneice]

27 tabs open in Chrome/Safari...Jesus, are you people serious?!
How about keeping everything tidy and close whatever you don't need and...like magic, your 8GB boxes can handle much more without being...obsolete?

 

[phrehdd]

27 tabs open in Chrome/Safari...Jesus, are you people serious?!
How about keeping everything tidy and close whatever you don't need and...like magic, your 8GB boxes can handle much more without being...obsolete?

Yes, 27. I do research and often meet up with an article and before simply copying the link, I may find a better article or similar and elect to commit that one to a list of links.

Something to consider - if one were to just use basic HTML and similar, we are talking about a very small amount of RAM consumed. However, with the pushing of scripts, forcing down animations, and more, we start getting these memory-hungry pages taking control. It would be nice if Safari and others offered settings that prevented such exploitation of our systems (RAM in this case) rather than letting the pages themselves dictate the usage.

Btw, I wasn't kidding about the research. This time around it's a capstone for a BSIT degree.

 

[no0nefamous]

Yeah, it's not hard for tons of tabs to build up, but it also isn't fair to judge a device's performance with 27 of them open.

 

[profcutter]

I dunno, I disagree. If many many open tabs is the use case, then that’s how the machine should be judged. I also conduct research, and when I’m getting into it, I can often have upward of 50-80 tabs open. That’s how I’ll judge my next machine.

 

[no0nefamous]

I dunno, I disagree. If many many open tabs is the use case, then that’s how the machine should be judged. I also conduct research, and when I’m getting into it, I can often have upward of 50-80 tabs open. That’s how I’ll judge my next machine.

Fair enough.

 

[v0n]

As I said in other threads, if you're editing simple single camera videos for youtube, M1 mini is enough, for anything else, 16Gb is just not enough.

While editing relatively complicated, fast paced 15 minute video with multiple overlays and plugins used, by the time I'm 75% done my M1 mac mini with 16Gb can barely stay stable for an hour before either some plugins get disabled (the infamous "plugin stopped responding" garbage), FCPX crashes or rendering crashes. I now work in 5 minute chunks, export stages to prores, then import them back as a single file to timeline and work on the next 5 minute chunk. Despite all the hype and benchmarks from YT shills, first gen Silicon just doesn't cut the mustard and the fact that you now have laptops with 64Gb and most of the new lineup starts at 32Gb is a good proof that the whole "it's new type of memory because of access" was just a PR exercise.

The first generation Silicon is just an ipad on steroids, majority of its hardware is incomplete and crippled by design, all it has really going for it is incredible internal storage access speeds (at the cost of crippled external storage speeds). Monterey doesn't help with massive memory leaks all over the place, so at the moment, as I type it my M1 mini with two browsers open use over 10Gb out of 16gb of memory that never gets cleared or purged with uptime of 29 days. Most of it is taken by WindowServer and lsd.
Add to it the already discussed on multiple forums here random screen ghosting and flicker several times a day and you get a picture of what M1 is like as a "work horse", instead of benchmark machine on YouTube screen.

If you want to work with FCPX you still have to buy "something" out of Silicon range, but be a realist. Get as much memory and internal storage as you can. Even though it's a bit of a **** show for the money at the moment. Oh, and make sure you know about artificial hardware limitation on M1 Pro (no. of screens and graphical cores cap) and read up on slow screens on M1 Pro/Max to avoid real world disappointment.

 

[zerozoneice]

so yeah, if 50+ tabs are worth $500 extra, go for it man.
this is madness.
waiting now for some wise gurus saying that M1 Max sucks, it can't handle their 200 tabs open...

// me out.

 

[steve217]

Way back at the dawn of this thread, before it drifted in various discussions, @no0nefamous, we floated the idea of the base MM for video editing.

The $589 basic model is back in the refurbished store if you're still interested.

 

[no0nefamous]

Way back at the dawn of this thread, before it drifted in various discussions, @no0nefamous, we floated the idea of the base MM for video editing.

The $589 basic model is back in the refurbished store if you're still interested.

Thank you!! I snagged one.

Also, thank you everyone for your input. Ultimately I decided that, given that:

A. This will be my first Mac and I don't know if I'll like Mac OS.
B. My video editing skills are at a basic level and it would be a while before I'm doing more or if I'll even continue with it.
C. If I do pursue it, by the time I get more advanced I can then trade it in for a better product.
D. This was also intended to be a budget productive general work station for my bedroom and not solely for editing (I suppose I should have mentioned this in the OP).

it might be best to just try out the base model for now.

 

[zerozoneice]

Thank you!! I snagged one.

Also, thank you everyone for your input. Ultimately I decided that, given that:

A. This will be my first Mac and I don't know if I'll like Mac OS.
B. My video editing skills are at a basic level and it would be a while before I'm doing more or if I'll even continue with it.
C. If I do pursue it, by the time I get more advanced I can then trade it in for a better product.
D. This was also intended to be a budget productive general work station for my bedroom and not solely for editing (I suppose I should have mentioned this in the OP).

it might be best to just try out the base model for now.

good lad.
you'll enjoy it for sure!

 

[steve217]

Thank you!! I snagged one.

Also, thank you everyone for your input. Ultimately I decided that, given that:

A. This will be my first Mac and I don't know if I'll like Mac OS.
B. My video editing skills are at a basic level and it would be a while before I'm doing more or if I'll even continue with it.
C. If I do pursue it, by the time I get more advanced I can then trade it in for a better product.
D. This was also intended to be a budget productive general work station for my bedroom and not solely for editing (I suppose I should have mentioned this in the OP).

it might be best to just try out the base model for now.

Awesome! I hope you enjoy your base MM as much as I have.

Report back on your experience!

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Thank you!! I snagged one.

Also, thank you everyone for your input. Ultimately I decided that, given that:

A. This will be my first Mac and I don't know if I'll like Mac OS.
B. My video editing skills are at a basic level and it would be a while before I'm doing more or if I'll even continue with it.
C. If I do pursue it, by the time I get more advanced I can then trade it in for a better product.
D. This was also intended to be a budget productive general work station for my bedroom and not solely for editing (I suppose I should have mentioned this in the OP).

it might be best to just try out the base model for now.

I got the same one. I’m very happy with its performance so far. No problem with Logic sessions

I think it’s smart to buy what you actually need now and not try to predict what you might need in the future

Apple makes it easy to trade in when you’re ready to upgrade, and there’s always something better around the corner, so if you will need more power in the future it’s better to buy it when you need it

 

[profcutter]

Enjoy! Let us know how it goes.

 

[no0nefamous]

An update if you're curious... so far my experience has been pretty bad. The thing cannot send a proper signal to my monitor for whatever reason. This is a known issue and there is no workaround. I tried the "Dummy" Display hack as well. No matter what, the display is fuzzy and blurry. It's not the monitor or HDMI cable.

Second, the mouse pointer skips and lags on both USB and bluetooth mice. Another known issue apparently.

Third, it just doesn't seem all that fast or powerful at all. Feels like using a budget PC laptop (think those ~$200 range ones at Walmart. I wasn't expecting the performance of a MBP or anything but I thought it could at least compare with a mid-tier PC?

Unfortunately I'll probably be returning it. Thanks everyone for your help, anyway.

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

This is interesting. I’ve had one for a couple weeks and have had no trouble with the hdmi out, display is sharp and consistent, cursor is totally responsive with no lags (wireless usb), and it’s faster than an i9 MacBook pro that cost at least 4x as much in 2020. I’m sorry for your negative experience but it sounds like you got a lemon.

What programs do you use? Maybe the slowness is an M1 compatibility issue

the other stuff about the broken hdmi and lagging cursor, id try exchanging for another mini and/or definitively rule out your other hardware and cables before scrapping the mini entirely, because your experience is unusual

 

[Lihp8270]

Get a refurbed one with 16 gigs and a 512 gig hard drive. Then when an M1 pro/max or greater is released, trade that in if you feel you need more power. That is my plan when the next model is release. When working in FCP, I find that exporting or rendering takes up 8 gigs of memory, so you don't want to be max out. My last 3 Macs have been refurbs from Apple with no problems. I wouldn't get refurbed from Best Buy, Amazon, or anything like that.

When doing heavy tasks the OS will attempt to max out all resources it has available regardless of how much ram you have

 

[steve217]

An update if you're curious... so far my experience has been pretty bad. The thing cannot send a proper signal to my monitor for whatever reason. This is a known issue and there is no workaround. I tried the "Dummy" Display hack as well. No matter what, the display is fuzzy and blurry. It's not the monitor or HDMI cable.

Second, the mouse pointer skips and lags on both USB and bluetooth mice. Another known issue apparently.

Third, it just doesn't seem all that fast or powerful at all. Feels like using a budget PC laptop (think those ~$200 range ones at Walmart. I wasn't expecting the performance of a MBP or anything but I thought it could at least compare with a mid-tier PC?

Unfortunately I'll probably be returning it. Thanks everyone for your help, anyway.

Your experience brings back memories.

I bought my base MM M1 with the intention of replacing my 2012 i5 MM that's been doing time machine/media server duty. I figured it was almost 10 years old, so it was time to upgrade.

I put the new M1 Mini into the server slot... (note guard dog for security)..

.. and plugged in the monitor, a Dell P2017H 20" and turned it on.

And the display looked terrible. After much fiddling about, I learned that the newer Macs are lousy using HiDPI resolution on non-HiDPI monitors.

I put the 2012 Mini back in the server slot, plugged the M1 Mini into my LG 27" 4k (displacing my Ryzen PC on my desktop) to see what would happen and my screen woes were gone.

I was using the mouse from my PC (a Logitech G305 gaming mouse) on the mini and that was fiddly and choppy. So I dug in my Apple pile for a Magic Mouse and my mouse problem was solved.

I don't know what to tell you about your performance experience. Once the mouse and display were sorted, the M1 Mini is an extremely responsive machine. But I could see where a rotten display and a flakey mouse would color your impressions though.

I hope you don't think I'm asking you to throw more money at what was supposed to be a budget solution. But since you were open minded about getting the machine in the first place, perhaps my experience can give you guidance if you want to sort this out.

 

[profcutter]

What monitor are you using? What software is appearing laggy? Are you sure you’re using M1 software directly, not through Rosetta emulation?

 

[fstoprm]

An update if you're curious... so far my experience has been pretty bad. The thing cannot send a proper signal to my monitor for whatever reason. This is a known issue and there is no workaround. I tried the "Dummy" Display hack as well. No matter what, the display is fuzzy and blurry. It's not the monitor or HDMI cable.

Second, the mouse pointer skips and lags on both USB and bluetooth mice. Another known issue apparently.

Third, it just doesn't seem all that fast or powerful at all. Feels like using a budget PC laptop (think those ~$200 range ones at Walmart. I wasn't expecting the performance of a MBP or anything but I thought it could at least compare with a mid-tier PC?

Unfortunately I'll probably be returning it. Thanks everyone for your help, anyway.

I'm not surprised that you had a bad experience. The posts earlier recommending the 16/512 is definitely the way to go. I use mine everyday with Davinci Resolve (Studio Version) and it's a beast.

No issues at all with 4K ProRes, HDR Dolby Vision footage etc. The weakest link in my setup is a GDrive (spinning), but I rarely cut from that drive.

I added a 2TB SSD into an enclosure that sits under the mini, and I also have a Samsung T7/Gnarbox setup that works well too!

So... you need at the minimum the 16/512, and Add'tl SSD.

I use a Dell P2715Q Monitor for my basic needs and I have a Ninja Flame as my secondary for HDR/Dolby Vision reference. The Dell is connected via Thunderbolt to Display Port, and The Ninja via HDMI.

While the Ninja is certainly not the best solution for HDR, with careful work and paying attention to the scopes, I can get what I need for now until I can afford a proper HDR reference solution.

 

[steve217]

I'm not surprised that you had a bad experience. The posts earlier recommending the 16/512 is definitely the way to go. I use mine everyday with Davinci Resolve (Studio Version) and it's a beast. ... you need at the minimum the 16/512, and Add'tl SSD.

It seems like he (@no0nefamous) never got past the display and mouse issues.

He never reported on any video editing experience. He was going to pick up a base machine and see how it went. He made no report about ram or storage issues.

 

[no0nefamous]

Yeah, I haven't even attempted anything like that yet that would push the RAM limits. The thing is somewhat slow doing basic tasks. I'm attempting to reinstall MacOS and if my issues aren't solved, I'm probably gonna return it.