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| This thin yellow rectangle makes me so happy! |
2021 could be another bad year, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at the photo and video gear released over the past 12 months. We’ve seen a trio of top-of-the-line mirrorless cameras, a 12K cinema camera, a full frame gimbal, and an endless parade of great lenses. However, like many other creative people, I spend more time in front of the computer than I do on the set. And since the launch of the iMac M1, that work has become a lot more enjoyable for me.
A little plot. I’ve been editing YouTube shows on a bunch of Apple MacBook Pros for over a decade now. I avoid investing in a desktop computer because I often edit while traveling, so it makes more sense to throw money at a powerful laptop than owning a poor one. efficient and rarely used to the desktop. That’s how things have been throughout my entire YouTube career, and how I assume they will remain. Then 2020 happened and two big things changed.
The global pandemic means that travel has become a major part of my life into a distant memory. Even going to video editing in a coffee shop seems like an unnecessary risk. The size of my laptop is no longer an advantage, and after months of bowing to the tiny screen, I’m starting to value a nice external monitor for longer home editing.
The Apple M1 iMac is so light and thin, I even packed it up and took it on the road a few times
The second change is a sudden wave of cameras using the highly compressed H.265 codec for their video recording modes. All scenes from the Canon R5/R6 and Sony a7S III/a1 are not editable on Intel-based Mac computers, none of which is optimized to work with the new formats. The quality and performance of these new codecs are amazing, but I found myself dreading the process of actually turning that footage into something useful once I started editing on my Intel Macbook Pro. An upgrade is definitely needed.
The Apple M1 iMac solved both of those problems. First, the built-in display is sharp and bright while taking up surprisingly little desk space. Sure, there aren’t as many displays as the 27″ 5K iMac, and I wish it was bright and contrasty enough to be HDR-certified, but it’s more than enough for editing the 4K SDR video we usually publish. The computer is so thin and light that I even packed it up and took it on the road a few times to get work done at the home cabin.
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| This is what I look like most of the time. |
To talk about how the new iMac solves my second problem, we must first talk about the M1 chip. The M1 represents Apple’s move from Intel processors to a single, custom-built integrated chip with embedded RAM and GPU. This is also what they have been doing on their phones and tablets for a while. New computers were introduced in late 2020, but most consumers received their first M1-enabled Macs in early 2021. Early benchmarks looked fine, but not groundbreaking. What interests me are reports of seamless editing of 10-bit H.265 footage with even the lowest spec machines.
The absence of fan noise seemed trivial at first, but Chris’ gaming laptop now sounds like a jet engine to me.
I didn’t need another laptop and the M1 Mac Mini still required a new screen, so I braced for the inevitable M1 iMac. At the end of April, my patience paid off and I immediately placed an order for the 16GB model “yellow” (mostly gold in fact). Upon arrival, I watched some 4K footage of the Sony a7S III and the iMac didn’t break a sweat. 5.9K Panasonic S1H footage? Play like I’m working with 1080P. Only 8K 10-bit from Canon’s R5 causes some frame drops when stacking multiple clips.
What’s interesting is the performance when Working on a video or photo that sets the M1 computer apart. When it comes to exporting photos and videos, it’s not significantly faster than my old 2018 MacBook Pro. The thing is, I don’t spend all day exporting, most of my time is spent in Final Cut Pro or Capture One actually editing, and there the iMac feels like a big step forward. Instantly seeing results when I make edits makes me much more productive and, more importantly, less frustrated. The absence of fan noise might seem trivial at first, but Chris’ gaming laptop now sounds like a jet engine to me when he fires up Capture One.
The iMac was a huge improvement for me, but I didn’t realize how big the leap forward was until I finally got on board again to launch the Nikon Z9. That trip required me to take my old MacBook Pro with Intel and work on it again seriously. The 8K footage preview is a slideshow, every adjustment requires the visit of my old friend, the beach ball is spinning and I can feel my hunchback slowly starting to form again . When I returned from my trip, I almost ran to the iMac and was rewarded with seamless editing of Z9 files.
I almost never feel like I’m pushing this iMac to its limits even when working with high-resolution footage.
This computer can’t go wrong: The M1 had a really hard time working with Canon CRaw and Red’s R3D raw video footage. However, I rarely work with those files, and both Apple’s ProRes Raw and Blackmagic’s BRaw perform excellently, becoming the most popular raw video format. If you often work with R3D and Craw scenes, this might not be the machine for you.
Which brings me to the big announcements later this year: the new MacBook Pro M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro. They are significantly more powerful than the M1-based machines and would be a good choice for anyone working with raw video or doing 3D rendering. For many people, those new laptops will be their Gear Of The Year, and I’ll probably buy one when travel becomes significantly less terrifying. The thing is, I almost never feel like I’m pushing this iMac to its limits even when working with high-resolution footage from the latest mirrorless and cinema cameras. . So while I typed it with proper posture looking at a lovely screen, I couldn’t choose anything else for my Gear Of The Year.
