Mac Mini and Final Cut Pro

[Chris_redfield]

I need to get my hands on Final Cut Pro so need to get a mac. (I'd also quite like to get iWeb but that is not so important.)

Unfortunately the things are pretty darned expensive and I'm pretty darned broke so was wondering if the Mac Mini would be a viable option. Does anyone here use a Mac Mini for running Final Cut Pro and if so can they run the software acceptably or is it just painfully slow.

The other thing that appeals about the mac mini is that its so small, and as I already have a desktop with monitor and laptop cluttering my desk then the mac mini would be perfect because of its size.

[zanzabar]

the macbook pros are painfully slow with it so i would think that the mini would aswell. i would look to buying liscenses and making a hackentosh with and EFI loader if u have a good computer already (u just need cpu)

[bball4ever39]

It's going to be painfully slow. This isn't the type of thing you want to go cheap on, the more money you save now the more time you will spend later. Hackintosh is the best option if you have a decent computer already, and with the money you save from not buying a mac mini you should be able to invest in some good upgrades if you need it. It's a $1000 piece of software, it's a big investment all around to be able to take full advantage of it.

[shoota]

hackintosh and pirating would be the cheapest but i'm not advocating either of those. but like these guys said, you need serious hardware for FC Pro from my understanding

[Aphex_Tom_9]

Actually...
I've used FCP on both an older (core2duo, 2gb ram) and brand new (i7, 4gb ram) Macbook Pro's, and I honestly wasn't bothered by performance, it was decent on the older mac and good on my newer laptop. The projects I was handling were decent size, some heavy clips and cuts. I never bashed my head on the keyboard because it was too slow or anything.
That said, the best mac mini has a 2.66ghz core2duo and 4gb ram. It might get slow if you have some really massive projects going on, but if it's casual to mid-range stuff, you should be fine.
I would advocate the hackintosh method, I've built one and it was a lot of fun, however I don't know how well a hackintosh will work with capturing video through firewire into FCP (if you're going to be doing things that way)
oh, and as far as acquiring FCP through un-official methods, it's quite easy (not advocating anything here)

[Chris_redfield]

Thanks very much, I thought the Core 2 Duo's should be OK to handle it. I see a lot of people using older 15" mac books just for doing DIT work with RED camera's and whilst they aren't the fastest they don't seem painfully slow.

The only other thing though is that speccing up a Mac Mini makes the price start to become a bit ridiculous. 4 gig of ram, a 500gb hdd, and the 2.66ghz CPU takes the price just shy of £900. Where for that money I may as well just get an iMac for a little bit more and get a more powerful system, with the added value of the monitor, keyboard and mouse. Mac's pricing is so infuriating. I appreciate that a Hackintosh would be a huge amount of fun, but I don't want to run into any compatibility problems down the line with in-puts/drivers and what not.

I've seen that the 27" macs also come with a display port in. It might be worth me dropping my monitor, and getting an adaptor for my existing system and just plugging that into the iMac. I may even be able to flog my existing monitor to recoup some costs. I've even seen that there is an adaptor where its possible to plug in your 360 and PS3 to the 27" now, so I could even consider scrapping the tv in my study as well as space is a premium.