A few days ago, MacWorld published a review titled: “Best Mac For Video Editing.” Since this is something I’ve written about a lot, I read it. Sigh… I’m sure the author was well-meaning, but this review is unhelpful at best, and misleading at worst.
When computers costs thousands of dollars there’s no excuse for a review that is vacuous, uninformed and useless.
THERE IS NO “BEST”
Start with the headline: “Best Mac for Video Editing.” Whenever you are looking for the “best” technology, the only possible answer is: “It depends…” While putting “Best” in the headline generates clicks, it certainly doesn’t generate accuracy.
For example, each of these questions has a different Mac as an answer:
RAM
As example, MacWorld wrote: “You’ll want to max your Mac out with the most RAM you can afford when you buy it. How much you need will depend on the software you are using and the amount of data you are working with or video you are rendering.”
Not true.
While it is true that you can’t upgrade RAM later, it is not true that you need to “max out your Mac.” If that were true, video editing could not be done on systems with limited RAM. The amount of RAM you need depends upon frame size, frame rate and the number of streams you are editing at once.
HD is easily edited in 8 GB. 4K and limited multicam is better at 16 GB. Extensive multicam requires 32 GB. To “future-proof” a system, get 64 GB. But you won’t see any benefit in video editing buying more than 64 GB of RAM. You’ll barely see a benefit – except for multicam editing – going beyond 32 GB.
NOTE: Other applications, like 3D modeling, benefit from more RAM, but that isn’t video editing.
CPU
MacWorld wrote: “Along with the RAM you will also want to max out the CPU. We recommend that the more serious you are about video editing the more cores you choose.”
Why? Based on my tests, no software uses all the cores that are available all the time. Many tasks are relegated to the efficiency cores, because they are all that’s needed. Most times, CPU cores run about 50% of top speed – with periodic variations. Multicam uses more cores than single-camera editing.
GPU
MacWorld wrote: “With the advent of Apple silicon the GPU and the CPU co-exist on the same chip (along with the RAM, as explained above). Apple’s GPUs aren’t to be sniffed at though.” The article then goes into a comparison between Tile Based Deferred Rendering (BDR) and Immediate Mode Rendering (IMR). Neither of which are relevant to video editing because we have no control over the math the GPU uses to do its work. This is just a smokescreen to fill space.
Does the image look good? If so, great. If not, try different software. It isn’t a GPU problem.
What you need to know with GPUs is that the image quality is the same regardless of the number of GPUs on your system. All you are buying is more speed. You should also know that no software consistently uses all the GPUs on a system. So, there is no great value in spending more money to get more CPUs that you won’t use.
The middle ground – in terms of GPU count- is “best” here.
STORAGE
When is comes to storage, MacWorld takes us completely astray: “You should also get as much storage as you can when you buy your Mac because the only Mac that will give you the option of upgrading internal storage later on is the Mac Pro. You are likely to be working with very large files, so the more storage in your Mac the better.”
Totally wrong. (Well, OK, it is true that you can upgrade storage on the Mac Pro.) Has MacWorld never heard of external drives? Has MacWorld not compared the price and capacity of internal storage vs. external storage? Does MacWorld know the storage speeds required for single vs. multicam editing?
Regardless of how much internal storage you buy for your Mac, almost all video projects will exceed it – especially as frame sizes increase. You will always need external storage. Always.
So the better question is: “How much storage do you need to work efficiently with your Mac?” And the answer is 1-2 TB and never less than 512 GB. The ONLY reason to buy more – aside from wanting to spend lots of extra money – is that you plan to edit more than 40 streams of native 4K or larger multicam projects. That amount of data exceeds the capacity of Thunderbolt 3/4 to support.
THE [MISSING] MEDIA ENGINE
When it comes to video editing, the Media Engine (hardware encoding/decoding) is critically important. Yet, Macworld made no mention of it.
The built-in media engine for all M1/M2 SoCs accelerates ProRes, ProRes RAW, H.264 and HEVC data processing. This acceleration supports larger frame sizes, more multicam streams, faster rendering, faster exports and faster compression.
All M-series Macs have at least one Media Engine. The M2 Max has two and the M2 Ultra has four. If you are doing extensive multicam editing, get at least two.
SUMMARY
What bothers me about this type of review is that provides generic, vague and unhelpful information to people who are about to spend thousands of dollars in hope that the computer system they get will do the job. There’s nothing in this review that you can use to make an informed purchase decision.
Reviews like this may generate clicks, but they don’t create understanding. Your time is too valuable to waste reading drivel like this. And if we don’t complain, publications like MacWorld will never improve.
EXTRA CREDIT
Here’s my take on what MacWorld COULD have written:
Here are some other articles with specifics you might find interesting:
17 Responses to MacWorld Misses. Why Some Reviews Are So Unhelpful.
I recently bought MacBook Air 15inch M2 with 24gb memory, and 1tb storage.
It works extremely well. I do not expect to be editing 8K video, so that is not a consideration. It runs FCP and Da Vinci Resolve very fast and and clean. No problems at all.
Christopher:
This is good to know. Thanks.
Larry
Not surprised!
This piece, along with the 8K piece in your October 16 email, and its details on storage speeds and all, are prime examples of why your newsletter is so valuable. Thank you.
Stefan:
Thanks!
Larry
The idea of maxing out internal storage is just ridiculous. I only want internal storage to successfully run my editing app and other software, along with computing and OS functions . All media (which takes up the majority of storage space) is stored on my external drives, for best efficiency.
That is editing practice 101.
Al;
Yup. You got it.
Larry
I, too, am appalled at how many “Best of…” reviews are published without enough information to make a meaningful decision.
There is a print magazine and website that focuses exclusively on “making video.” It regularly prints articles whose titles begin with “Best…” While they provide brief descriptions of their “best” products in different categories (Best soft camera bag, Best hard camera case, Best camera backpack, etc), they do not provide consistent information in each description so it is not possible to make meaningful comparisons. Nor do they mention the 2 or 3 runners-up in each category, which might be better suited to a reader’s needs and budget than the so-called “Best” product.
I do subscribe to this magazine, but usually avoid reading its “Best” articles. Instead, I sometimes find a useful article such as “Picking the right fonts” in the current issue.
Bill:
The problem, as you point out, is that many of these “Best” articles are written to get clicks, which generates website ad revenue. They are often compiled by skimming the marketing specs without any real-world use to inform the article. This isn’t always the fault of the writer – they need to turn out X articles per day to stay employed. Something that takes days of research, though more useful, falls by the board.
Larry
Bill, I still have a subscription to “that magazine”, but I can’t recall the last time I read more than one article. It’s kind of sad how it and MacWorld (and other publications) used to be chock full of valuable content (I have lots of dog-eared print copies), and now seem to be more concerned with clicks.
This article in your newsletter is why you are so valuable to the production community. Thank you, Larry.
That article had the generic feel of something created by ChatGPT. It looks sensible on a quick scan, but (as you point out) some of the information is simply wrong. The suggestion to max out internal storage is a perfect example—the reason given for buying as much storage as you can *sounds* sensible (and ChatGPT would recommend this approach for the reason given), but no video editor ever uses the internal drive this way.
Kit:
A very interesting comment. I never considered that an article with an author by-line might be written by AI. I would hope not. But, we live in strange times.
Larry
Question Larry,
This person who wrote the article, is she even a “video” person? It does not sound like it to me.
David:
She is a regular beat writer for MacWorld. I don’t know whether she knows video or not.
Larry
Larry thank you for the clarity….as a one bander without a team around me I need good information and solid options on order to spend money wisely. Larry you always help in that regard thank you.
Shaun
Larry. Fantastic explanation, as always.
Congrats.