I have Final Cut Studio 2. I want to either buy a mac mini 4gig ram with 2.53 ghz or used macbook pro. i use all final cut apps except color. with the mac mini can i...
-Render 1080i HDV fairly fast
-Play Back 1080i in real time
-Do Everything in Real Time
-Use Motion
-Is the Mac Mini Insides similar to the 13'' Macbook Pro?
-Will I enjoy editing on the new mac mini?
to your questions -
Rendering "fast" will require RAM and CPU power. I assume you're referring to conversion or export
Play back 1080i in real time - will require additional hard drives connected to your system via firewire (as that's the fastest connection option avail on those two comps) - even so, the playback windows are small and should play back without any issues (I edit 1080i footage stored in ProRES 4:2:2, and I have no problem playing the video back in FCP).
Do everything in real time - Not even a hoss Mac Pro can do *everything* in real time (I have an 8 core 2.8GHz Mac Pro w/ 8g ram and although the vast majority of what I use is real time, there are some transitions and such that do require rendering). Certain effects and transitions and audio will require rendering, but it's easy to identify what will require rendering as for effects and transitions the ones that will run in real time are in bold, the rest are regular text. If you plunk certain audio on the timeline - ie: mp3 - it will need to convert the audio before it can be used and played back on the timeline in real time.
Both systems could use Motion.
Certain aspects of the innards of a Mac mini and a MBP 13" are similar, but the mini can have a faster CPU (2.66GHz vs 2.53GHz in MBP 13"), but less RAM (Mini max at 4g, MBP 13" max at 8g) - so it's a bit of a tough decision. If it were me, I'd probably go with more max RAM as with video, you'd probably see more effect with 2x ram vs 130MHz difference in CPU speed/core.
Mobility is a key question - but also realize, if you're planning on editing, you're probably gonna want a nice big screen vs the 13" screen on the MBP, and also you are going to need an external firewire drive for your scratch media, which means that you'll probably be tied to a wall while editing anyway...