01-11-2005, 06:38 PM

Hi,

Very tempted to buy myself the new Mac Mini, but am slightly confused by the monitor situation.

I do a lot of live visuals work, so require a dual display graphics head, so I can preview on my local screen and output to projectors and the like.

The Mac Mini has a DVI connector on the back, am I right in thinking I either use an adapter that drops it to analogue VGA, or an adapter that takes it to video - rca or s-vid? But can't run an analogue monitor and a video send at the same time?

Thanks

Jude

01-11-2005, 06:58 PM

the mini has a VGA and a DVI port so in theory it should be able to do dual-screens however the graphics card is only 32MB so I don't know how well that would work.

01-11-2005, 07:04 PM

there is only a DVI port, that you must use the included DVI-to-VGA adapter cable. meaning only one display. you can buy a device from formac to output to composite and s-video from firewire.. but youd be better off with the lower end G5 single proc

and as stated, it only has a 32MB 4x AGP graphics card. which is poor for visual work

01-11-2005, 07:05 PM

Thats what I was going to say.

01-11-2005, 07:12 PM

Thanks guys, a little pricy for the convertor...

Has put me off a bit now actually.. I got all excited that I could probably afford a mac now. I'd still probably run all visuals off my Windows laptop anyhow...

Still heavily considering it..

Jude

01-11-2005, 09:43 PM

what is a adc or something to that effect monitor conector that apple has... saw some old monitors with it

01-11-2005, 10:20 PM

Originally Posted by Echo_

what is a adc or something to that effect monitor conector that apple has... saw some old monitors with it

Apple Display Connector. It was Apple's own standard for connecting their monitors to their computers.

01-11-2005, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by Judestone

Hi,

Very tempted to buy myself the new Mac Mini, but am slightly confused by the monitor situation.

I do a lot of live visuals work, so require a dual display graphics head, so I can preview on my local screen and output to projectors and the like.

The Mac Mini has a DVI connector on the back, am I right in thinking I either use an adapter that drops it to analogue VGA, or an adapter that takes it to video - rca or s-vid? But can't run an analogue monitor and a video send at the same time?

Thanks

Jude

If your doing visual stuff, get a powermac or even a powerbook.
Don't be tempted with the mini cause its cheap, although i like the idea..

01-12-2005, 12:03 AM

Mac mini is kind of like a compact home thing for basic applications and surfin the net. Just lie the eMac, and iBook. I agree that you should get a low end G5. It owuld be faster, you could get good quality with 2 monitors and the video card would be way better.

Also if you want to get into different "visual stuff", then you might want to take advantage of the Radean 9800 in the G5 for core image/video.

01-12-2005, 05:29 AM

Originally Posted by shaun89

Mac mini is kind of like a compact home thing for basic applications and surfin the net. Just lie the eMac, and iBook. I agree that you should get a low end G5. It owuld be faster, you could get good quality with 2 monitors and the video card would be way better.

Also if you want to get into different "visual stuff", then you might want to take advantage of the Radean 9800 in the G5 for core image/video.

Ok, thanks for these thoughts.

What i'm thinking, is to move to a Mac Mini for my desk, whilst still continuing to do live work off my laptop (which i would do anyway, makes miles more sense!) then probably look, in a year, maybe 2 at a power-book after myself and possibly parental units are convinced, so I go completely mac...

Am I right on understanding that because Mac's are built from the same bits, and the OS written around them, that it'll actually use a 32mb card much better/more efficiently than a pc would?

If I pulled some vt in through firewire, and started editing it through, do you think I'd come across any problems, because of a low spec? I can't imagine the graphics card of a powerbook to be much better? <speculated, not looked>

Thanks

Jude

01-12-2005, 06:12 AM

The graphics card of the powerbook is either 64 MB or 128 MB depending on which model you choose.

01-12-2005, 03:42 PM

You coudl jsut wait for the new PowerBooks comming out this year.... I thought it was this month anctaully. It would be powerful ad portable.

01-13-2005, 05:19 PM

Originally Posted by MacAddikt

and as stated, it only has a 32MB 4x AGP graphics card. which is poor for visual work

That is a misleading statement. You will see no benefit from a 64MB card using 2d apps. So if "visual work" means Photoshop, Illustrator, or any other 2d software, the Mini is every bit as powerful as the Powerbook with it's bigger video card.

01-13-2005, 05:51 PM

Mainly use Arkaos to play out video clips, really need dual display for performance stuff, so will keep using my laptop for that, but can still prepare and run stuff in preview mode on the mac...

Looking forward to my entrance to the mac world...