Mac Mini 2018 for Post - opinions

[originalscottyg]

Originally Posted by jeremiahmoore

Externally, here using Samsung T5 usbC drives for large sessions with no issues.

+1 for the Samsung T5 drives. I run huge sessions off of them with disk cache turned off and they are rock solid. Caveat... like Jeremiah, these are post sessions with not as much contiguous audio as a music session, but still sessions pushing 500+ voices sometimes.

[Ayush Ahuja]

I've shifted to using Samsung NVMe SSD's with the 2018 Mac mini and the speeds are incredibly fast.

For a hub I use the Glyph TB3 hub which has an internal NVMe Bay which serves as my main audio drive. I also have the OWC Express 4M2 in raid 0 on TB3 which gives you incredible speeds.

Picked up the NVMe drives during Black Friday sales, there were some great deals then.

Ayush

[11miles]

Hello,

MAc mini i7 user here, still on HD 12.8.2.

Thinking about getting an eGPU to help PT tackle the QT h264 playback which is a bit sluggish. Also the fans get quite loud on the Mini.

Can anyone share any experiences regarding the possible improvement they had in similar setup?

thanks

[LDS]

Originally Posted by 11miles

Hello,

MAc mini i7 user here, still on HD 12.8.2.

Thinking about getting an eGPU to help PT tackle the QT h264 playback which is a bit sluggish. Also the fans get quite loud on the Mini.

Can anyone share any experiences regarding the possible improvement they had in similar setup?

thanks

Perhaps download a trial of Videoslave, and set it up with one of your sessions to see if your Mac mini is actually struggling with video, or if it is Pro Tools. I have an RX580 eGPU here with my MBP, and it definitely handles a pair of 1920x1080 displays and a 4K screen very well. It doesn't necessarily make Pro Tools video playback any less sluggish though! Even with an AJA XT IO it can be hit and miss.

I am moving from a MBP to a trash can to see if it is any better. The fans have also driven me up the wall. A couple of other things to try are - converting the video to proRes or DNxHD, and try putting the video on its own dedicated hard drive & USB bus.

[Tim R.]

Originally Posted by 11miles

Hello,

MAc mini i7 user here, still on HD 12.8.2.

Thinking about getting an eGPU to help PT tackle the QT h264 playback which is a bit sluggish. Also the fans get quite loud on the Mini.

Can anyone share any experiences regarding the possible improvement they had in similar setup?

thanks

I use "Turbo Boost Switcher Pro" to turn OFF the Mini's turbo boost function and the fans don't kick up nearly as much. The only down side I've noticed is off-line bounces take a bit longer, but you could just switch it on during bounces if it was necessary.

[originalscottyg]

Originally Posted by Tim R.

I use "Turbo Boost Switcher Pro" to turn OFF the Mini's turbo boost function and the fans don't kick up nearly as much. The only down side I've noticed is off-line bounces take a bit longer, but you could just switch it on during bounces if it was necessary.

+1 for Turbo Boost Switcher. It helped to massively quiet down the fans on my i9 MacBook Pro.

[bewk]

Originally Posted by LDS

A couple of other things to try are - converting the video to proRes or DNxHD, and try putting the video on its own dedicated hard drive & USB bus.

+1 for this. For me personally, h264 for has never been a "useable" codec for work in PT. Technically it can be played but the load on the CPU to unpack the data is a waste of resources when you need the box to focus on PT. Especially if you want good sync. Navigating a session with video is night and day when using codecs designed to operate on frame boundaries and not gop compression. ProRes and DNxHD are both better suited. I've been using PR Proxy since the codec was approved for PT and has been rock solid. Those Mac minis could eat ProRes Proxy for breakfast.

-Chris

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by 11miles

Hello,

MAc mini i7 user here, still on HD 12.8.2.

Thinking about getting an eGPU to help PT tackle the QT h264 playback which is a bit sluggish. Also the fans get quite loud on the Mini.

Can anyone share any experiences regarding the possible improvement they had in similar setup?

thanks

Agree with the others, transcode your video to DNxHD or Prores. It's not the Mini that is slow with H264, it's PT. Especially v12. Newer releases are better but still not very usable.

[11miles]

Hi everyone,

thanks for all the info and ideas.

I am aware of the transcoding necessity if one wants a flawless playback within PT.

Transcoding takes time (handling, import/renaming...) and the data is bigger.

Working mostly with short Tv clips, that has some drawbacks for me, especially since i have some last minute video to import while client is on my back and VO talent is waiting behind the mic.

I figured the eGPU and the dedicated video card would improve playback some, but i understand now that its the problem on PT end.

I am also a bit dissapointed that newer version of PT didnt yet resolve it, since that would be a real benefit for me. That and an improved elastic audio engine.

I tried the video slave. Works amazingly!!
While its a viable workaround, not really worth it from my standpoint.

However i would like to share my current experience i have with another software.
I had a spare e-licenser on the shelf and i went to steinberg.com and downloaded a trial version of Nuendo 10.

Two thing i really wanted to try.

1. Video playback with h264 is flawless
No need to convert anything, (the mac mini eats the h264 for breakfast)

2. elastic audio.
i tried speeding up some vocals (which is what we do 60% of the time in tv audio production)
I have elastic Zplane plugin (which Nuendo automatically accepted) and when speeding up some random vocals i got the usual robotic voice when exagerrating.
Then i chose the ''standard'' vocal algorithm within the Nuendo's own elastic audio. Stretched in 10%+ and speed it up by mroe than 10%.
again blown away. Just wow.

Works better than anything else i have tried or heard, including ableton live.

3. i bought the Auto post align for some work when ADR or working with filed tracks aligning boom and lav tracks. Nuendo has this built in.

4. you can import key commands to have the same shortcuts we have in PT.


I am sure the list goes on.


I am not thinking about switching from PT, but it is nice to know that there are some really cool alternatives out there!

Anyway just wanted to share my thoughts.



Oh, The TurboBoost switcher is a true gem, thanks.

[LDS]

Portrait DAW sync might be another option. I have never used it, and get a "can't be found in your country" message in the App Store. It might not be 64 bit.

https://adb4nd.com/portrait