05-13-2010, 06:34 PM

Hi guys, i'm new here and I posted this on Yahoo answers with no real results, so i figure what better way than to get answers than by the people who know the products best ?

Here's what I asked on Yahoo

Hello, I am into video editing and I am saving up the funds in order to get into serious video editing. I dont want to spend a few thousand dollars in just a Mac at the moment (that will be in the future when video editing goes from a hobby to a career), so right now I want to purchase a Mac Mini. I've been reading up on it for a while, and Mac Minis don't have the RPMs to support Adobe CS5 (Minis only have 5400, it requires 7200), so to solve this problem, I figured i'd buy an external hard drive that runs at 7200 RPMs and install CS5 and run it off there.

My question is, what type of Mac Mini is necessary for me to find a fairly decent amount of quality when video editing on a Mac Mini using CS5.

These are the following requirements for Adobe Premiere CS5
Mac OS
Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
Mac OS X v10.5.7 or v10.6.3; Mac OS X v10.6.3 required for GPU-accelerated performance in Adobe Premiere Pro
2GB of RAM (4GB or more recommended)
20.6GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash-based storage devices)
1280x900 display (1280x1024 recommended) with qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card, 16-bit color, and 256MB of VRAM
Adobe-certified GPU card for GPU-accelerated performance in Adobe Premiere Pro; visit the Adobe Premiere Pro system requirements page for the latest list of supported cards
Some GPU-accelerated features in Adobe Photoshop require graphics support for Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0
7200 RPM hard drive for editing compressed video formats; RAID 0 for uncompressed
Core Audio–compatible sound card
DVD-ROM drive compatible with dual-layer DVDs (SuperDrive for burning DVDs; external Blu-ray burner for creating Blu-ray Disc media)
Java Runtime Environment 1.5 or 1.6
QuickTime 7.6.2 software required for QuickTime features
Adobe Flash Player 10 software required to play back DVD projects exported as SWF files
Broadband Internet connection required for online services*

I'm looking to spend under $1000 on the Mac Mini alone, so if anyone could please help me find the best Mac Mini for me, I would greatly appreciate it. It's easy to just go to the Mac store online and build a Mac Mini, which i have been doing but im still not sure what I need, so please if anyone can help, i'd greatly appreciate it.

*Note: Buying a PC is out of the question. I would love to buy a PC (because they're less expensive and actually have higher performance) but for me to throw away 1700 on CS5 and then like 7 or 800 on a PC would be unrealistic since i'd have to repurchase CS5 for Mac later on when I eventually do make the switch (because Macs and Final Cut Pro are the industry standard in video editing. Plus macs come with iLife and such which is great to have Garage Band and all the sound effects that you can't get on a PC)

Looking forward to an answer, thanks !

So in the end I would probably have a
2.56 GHz Processor
4GB RAM
160 Gb Memory
and an external 7200 RPM hard drive by firewire 800.

Would i install the programs on the External HDD ? Or on the internal harddrive? Would this configuration be sufficient to work for my needs ?

I believe after looking into it more, that the only thing that really needs 7200 RPMs is Premiere Pro, which I probably wouldnt use because I prefer my PC for its editing software until I can raise funds once again to get Final Cut (which we use in school.)

Please help ! All opinion necessary!
Thanks, Alex

05-13-2010, 06:57 PM

I think you'd want to install the applications on the internal hard drive. You could use the external for a scratch disk, file storage, time machine, etc.

05-14-2010, 02:03 PM

Swap out the internal 5,400rpm drive for a 7,200rpm unit - problem solved!

Might be worth going for a 'Green' version to keep the temps down inside the case but I'm sure you'll be fine.