Mac Mini 2014 PremierePro

[Nate32]

Hello,

I am a hobby photographer, who recently started out doing some videos with a 5D3 and a GoPro hero 3+.
So far I have taken only photos and was editing it on a Led Cinema display + Mac Air (4GB ram 1.8Ghz i7 Intel HD 3000 384 Ram). It wasnt fast at all, but I loved, that it was very portable.
However I edited a video taken with my DSLR in PP CS6, only colors and sharpness, and the video was 8 minutes. Exported in Full HD 24P with a h.256 compression and after 2 hours doing nothing finally it wrote that I had 140 hours left. I went to sleep and when I woke up I still had 120 hours left so it was not kidding.

Anyway I thought I should buy a Mac mini, and here are my options.

1. Current model with 2.5 dual core i5, Intel HD 4000, and I will upgrade it to 16GB ram.

2. Current model with 2.4 quad core i7, Itel HD 4000, Also 16GB ram and a Fusion drive.
(Does the Fusion drive really make a difference in video editing, than a normal 7200rpm HDD?)

3. Wait for the next gen Mac mini wich will have possible a bit faster CPU and what will be much better, is the Iris Graphics instead of Intel HD 4000.
(Is the difference big between Intel HD 4000 and Iris Graphic? Any Macbook Pro user who tried experienced the difference?)

Now I have the possibility to buy the option one really cheap. Should I buy it or buy the quad core version or wait for the Iris upgrade and buy the quad core with Iris Graphic?

Also Fusion drive vs HDD only from the video editing prospective.

Please if you have anything similar tell me the your experience.

Thanks,

Nathan

 

[762999]

knowing that you do movie editing I would go straight to the i7 and 16gb of ram. For the GPU aspect it's hard to tell if the current generation of software is using the power of the GPU that much. Someone else could give an opinion about that.

 

[Nate32]

And what about HDD vs Fusion Drive? How much of a difference would it make in video editing?

 

[Intelligent]

And what about HDD vs Fusion Drive? How much of a difference would it make in video editing?

A fusion drive will give you more responsiveness, faster copying and moving of files and faster startup. It will not affect the video editing that much, but i recommend a SSD/Fusion to anyone who uses a computer.

 

[fuchsdh]

In regards to GPU, Premiere Pro uses GPU acceleration in limited ways during normal editing, and fully uses GPUs (including dual setups) only when exporting. Adobe's support for integrated graphics in terms of hardware acceleration is incredibly limited.

If you can muddle through, OP, I'd wait until the next gen chipsets come out, and see if there's any likelihood of a Mini refresh. Even if it's just the next version of integrated graphics, they'll likely smoke HD4000 in the current minis.

If you had to buy a computer today, a fusion drive will increase your overall responsiveness, but won't help too much speeding up encodes (still very much worth getting for your overall computer-using pleasure). And definitely get the quad-core i7 option--since you'll need to power through your renders using the CPU those two extra cores will be well worth the price you pay.

 

[deeddawg]

Just remember there's nothing "magic" about a Fusion drive. It's just a storage volume made from an SSD and an HDD. The two drives are conventional separate drives.

Given the price of SSD storage today you'd be better off providing your own larger SSD. (e.g. Crucial mx100 512GB is $220 or $110 for the 256GB version)

Then if you also want an HDD you can either roll your own Fusion drive or just manage the two separately.

 

[MTL18]

I would look for the Quad-Core in the refurb store if I could not wait.

The current Mac Mini is a 2012 computer, I wouldn't pay the same price as someone who bought it in 2012.

 

[Cape Dave]

Just remember there's nothing "magic" about a Fusion drive. It's just a storage volume made from an SSD and an HDD. The two drives are conventional separate drives.

Given the price of SSD storage today you'd be better off providing your own larger SSD. (e.g. Crucial mx100 512GB is $220 or $110 for the 256GB version)

Then if you also want an HDD you can either roll your own Fusion drive or just manage the two separately.

THIS IS SO TRUE. Go all in on SSD. Anything else is crap. This is 2014.

 

[Nate32]

And do you guys think that adobe will suport next gen intel graphics or should I change to Final Cut?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Also know, that using the system drive as storage for your video footage is not recommended.

It is best you use an external HDD or two, USB 3.0 will suffice, for your compressed or native-editing-codec footage. You also should think about having a backup of your original footage.

 

[Nate32]

Also know, that using the system drive as storage for your video footage is not recommended.

Why?

It is best you use an external HDD or two, USB 3.0 will suffice, for your compressed or native-editing-codec footage. You also should think about having a backup of your original footage.

Yes I always have backups on external HDDs, but all of them are USB 2.0

 

[bearcatrp]

If you have to get a mini, get one with 2 drives. The second drive is needed for the scratch drive. The constant reading and writing to the same disc is what is taking so long. Try using an external drive on your laptop and you will see a reduced render time. Working with HD video take CPU horsepower and/or GPU if available with the software. A used mac pro (2010-2012) with a 6 core would help you allot.

 

[haravikk]

A fusion drive will give you more responsiveness, faster copying and moving of files and faster startup. It will not affect the video editing that much, but i recommend a SSD/Fusion to anyone who uses a computer.

If you're comfortable doing that kind of thing (it'll require some Terminal use and a re-install of OS X) then what you actually do is split the SSD part of the Fusion such that you have an SSD partition for OS X and apps, then the other partition combined with the HDD into a Fusion Drive.

This gives you the benefits of a fully SSD based OS X and apps installation (though you may need to move larger ones off that partition, not sure what size SSD Apple currently gives with a Fusion Drive?), while also giving your files SSD a big write speed boost and boosting common file read speeds thanks to the SSD part.

It's not something most users will be comfortable with, and a Fusion Drive will certainly give good performance regardless, but splitting the SSD can help ensure OS and apps are always accelerated.

For example, with a 256gb SSD, you can partition off 64gb for your Fusion Drive, which is still plenty for speeding up most workloads, plus it has its own 4gb cache. Then you give the remaining ~192gb (less recovery HD etc.) for OS and files, which for most users is probably much more than their OS and apps actually need anyway, so you can probably get away with less than that.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Why?

Because having the drive to access the video data and the OS and application data at the same time, even with RAM involved, will add to tear and wear and is just not good practice. It is always recommended, at least if you are a bit serious about video editing, to have dedicated video footage storage drives.
While it is okay to use the same drive for the OS and applications and some video for consumers, they do not do that video editing daily, once you make more than just occasional home videos, dedicated drives will show their power.