If I want to watch lots of 4k movies on my Apple Studio Display, should I get Mac mini or Mac Studio?

[macrumor2018]

I've noticed it seems like when I play videos on YouTube and Apple TV+ shows (or even 4k-movie files including webm) on Mac mini M1 or M2 store model machines, 4k playback gets a bit choppy, especially when a lot of the scenery changes quickly. Even with the studio display.

Two questions:

1. Is this due to the Mac mini's lack of GPU cores? (it doesn't come with M_ Max or Ultra)
2. Would this playback likely be smoother if I bought a Mac Studio, given its chips have a lot more GPU cores on them?

Just thinking about getting a Studio Display and need to choose between the mini and studio. Btw I've got a lot of old home videos filmed on 8mm tape prior to DVR, HD, smartphone, etc. from my early days that I would like to upgrade to 4K quality if possible.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

What codecs? I can play 4k movies just fine on my 2011 iMac, so either should be perfect for it.

 

[erihp]

how about an appletv 4k?

 

[macrumor2018]

What codecs? I can play 4k movies just fine on my 2011 iMac, so either should be perfect for it.

2011? Surely you must have meant the 2021 iMac. 2011 iMac was a good machine but with Thunderbolt 1 even with an external display the whole 4k thing seems a long shot at best.

 

[picpicmac]

... videos on YouTube and Apple TV+ shows (or even 4k-movie files including webm) on Mac mini M1 or M2 store model machines, 4k playback gets a bit choppy,

How do you know the fault is with the Mini and not the source encoding?

8mm tape prior to DVR, HD, smartphone, etc. from my early days that I would like to upgrade to 4K quality if possible.

Do you mean 8mm film or 8mm camcorder tapes?

In either case, the recording will be low resolution by today's standard. On the camcorder tapes the image will be in NTSC (if American market) or PAL (if European market), neither of which is close to today's "4K" DV. There's a big difference between 525 (or 625) lines and 2160 lines.

The very best 8mm film is better IMO than the consumer 8mm video tape. But I suspect you did not mean the film.

 

[macrumor2018]

How do you know the fault is with the Mini and not the source encoding?



Do you mean 8mm film or 8mm camcorder tapes?

In either case, the recording will be low resolution by today's standard. On the camcorder tapes the image will be in NTSC (if American market) or PAL (if European market), neither of which is close to today's "4K" DV. There's a big difference between 525 (or 625) lines and 2160 lines.

The very best 8mm film is better IMO than the consumer 8mm video tape. But I suspect you did not mean the film.

I suspected the fault would be the mini, since I remember scrolling through web pages was smoother on iPad Pro than iPad Air a few years ago.

8mm video tape is what I meant.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

2011? Surely you must have meant the 2021 iMac. 2011 iMac was a good machine but with Thunderbolt 1 even with an external display the whole 4k thing seems a long shot at best.

2011 is correct. It makes no sense to playback 4k on it, but it can do so, given the right codec and bitrate combinations. My point was merely that your problems stems from some software specific, and not Apple Silicon.

 

[bobcomer]

I can't see how the mini did that badly, an M1 or M2 should do better than that! Maybe it was only 8G of RAM or the internet connection was slow? Get a M2 Mini Pro then with at least 16G of RAM as it would be a nicer machine. Or a Mac Studio base model. It all depends on how much you want to spend.

 

[DLary]

Is this video being streamed? How strong is your internet connection? Is it also choppy when playing a 4K video that has been saved to your drive? Which player are you using?

If you want to upgrade video to 4K, you should check out Topaz Video AI and get the most powerful Mac Studio you can afford.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I've noticed it seems like when I play videos on YouTube and Apple TV+ shows (or even 4k-movie files including webm) on Mac mini M1 or M2 store model machines, 4k playback gets a bit choppy, especially when a lot of the scenery changes quickly. Even with the studio display.

Two questions:

1. Is this due to the Mac mini's lack of GPU cores? (it doesn't come with M_ Max or Ultra)
2. Would this playback likely be smoother if I bought a Mac Studio, given its chips have a lot more GPU cores on them?

Just thinking about getting a Studio Display and need to choose between the mini and studio. Btw I've got a lot of old home videos filmed on 8mm tape prior to DVR, HD, smartphone, etc. from my early days that I would like to upgrade to 4K quality if possible.

I suspect that a top M2 Mini with a Pro chip and the available 32 GB RAM would work well for your described usage: ~$2200 with 1 TB SSD and you adding more mass storage externally.

That said, it would be nuts to buy a Mini because a similarly spec'd M2 Studio with the Max chip also is ~$2200 with 1 TB SSD. The Max chip Studio is much, much stronger: more than twice as many transistors and twice the memory bandwidth, more ports, much better heat removal, etc..

My personal bent is toward stronger boxes and longer life cycles, so I would upgrade the Studio to at least (I chose 96) 64 GB RAM (+$400) and to maximum GPU cores (+$200).

Also, we can expect more M3s in H1 2024, so those are worth waiting to see if feasible. Or if you see any 3D imagery in your future (games, Maya, Blender, etc.) you should definitely wait for M3 or buy an M3 MBP if you must buy now (which is what I did with M2 MBP a year ago when M2 Studios were delayed). M3 hardware ray tracing is clearly a substantive upgrade from M2.

Edit: As long as you do not see 3D in your future, waiting for M3 Studios still may present deals on M2 Studios.

 

[kc9hzn]

Is this video being streamed? How strong is your internet connection? Is it also choppy when playing a 4K video that has been saved to your drive? Which player are you using?

If you want to upgrade video to 4K, you should check out Topaz Video AI and get the most powerful Mac Studio you can afford.

I’m not particularly sure how much you’d actually gain from uprezzing 8mm tape (especially stock analog 8mm, and not something like Hi-8 or Digital-8) to 4k. Film can generally be transferred at higher quality by using a higher quality sensor, but you can’t really interpolate more detail into video tape.

So how well does Topaz Video AI do at interpolating detail? Can it take a consumer VHS up to a fairly clean 4k video? If so, that’s pretty cool, and better than I’d ever expect.

 

[lewjh]

I can watch 4k shows and movies on my base model M2 Mac Mini just fine - no stuttering. I use Infuse for my own library and can watch AppleTV+ shows in the TV app. What source are you using?

 

[TechnoMonk]

I’m not particularly sure how much you’d actually gain from uprezzing 8mm tape (especially stock analog 8mm, and not something like Hi-8 or Digital-8) to 4k. Film can generally be transferred at higher quality by using a higher quality sensor, but you can’t really interpolate more detail into video tape.

So how well does Topaz Video AI do at interpolating detail? Can it take a consumer VHS up to a fairly clean 4k video? If so, that’s pretty cool, and better than I’d ever expect.

I have upscaled bunch of old 440p videos converted from tape to digitally using Topaz AI. Its probably the best upscaler today in the market.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Are you using HDMI/USBC to connect the display? How much RAM does your Mac mini have? I have an MBA M2 base model connected to an LG 4K display; it plays videos just fine. I usually convert my videos using handbrake into Apple TV 4k codecs.

 

[MRxROBOT]

Any current M Mac will handle 4k content smoothly. There's another variable at play here.

 

[kc9hzn]

Any current M Mac will handle 4k content smoothly. There's another variable at play here.

The OP seemed to imply that he was testing streaming 4k at an Apple Store (or maybe some non-Apple retail store that sells Macs, but most likely an Apple Store). It’s probably network bandwidth that’s causing the playback issues.

 

[yellowbunny]

You don’t need a Studio to play back 4k files… any Mac of the decade should be good for that (depending on codec/drive). But you may just want a Studio for other reasons (it’s a great computer!)

 

[Zest28]

Even my M1 iPad Pro and Apple TV 4K can play 4K movies just fine.

Just buy a cheap M1 Mac mini and it should be fine really.

 

[macrumor2018]

Even my M1 iPad Pro and Apple TV 4K can play 4K movies just fine.

Just buy a cheap M1 Mac mini and it should be fine really.

Wouldn't an M2 Pro Mac mini have more sustained performance for video playback. Or would it be even better to wait for the M3 with Ray Tracing and AV1 decoding?

 

[kc9hzn]

Wouldn't an M2 Pro Mac mini have more sustained performance for video playback. Or would it be even better to wait for the M3 with Ray Tracing and AV1 decoding?

No need for ray tracing support for pre-encoded video, that’s more of a real time rendering thing. I think it’ll take some time for AV1 to proliferate (and H.265/HEVC has already gotten an industrial foothold, so it might take a bit of a fight for AV1 adoption to really go forward). No need to hold out for the M3 if you just want to watch existing 4k videos (say, 4k Netflix or YouTube).

But the M1 Mac mini would almost certainly handle 30fps 4k (and could probably handle 60fps 4k HDR) pre-recorded video just fine. Network speed is the bottleneck, so it might make some sense to save money on the computer to invest into home network improvements and better Internet access.

 

[ewitte]

4k shouldn't need a lot of power. Something else could be going on using the CPU or running you short on RAM which would be pretty easy to do with a 8GB model.