2018-12-19 Video Editing and Mac computers simply go together like peanut butter and jelly. The single biggest thing that OS X brings to the table is seamless integration between the hardware of the machine in front of you with the operating system that runs in the background. For Mac users, Thunderbolt 3 is a good choice. For Windows users, USB 3.1 Gen 2 with Type C connector is a good choice as well. When you are selecting your video editing computer, you will likely have more than just one of these types of connections, so you will have flexibility.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.3; en-ca; HTC-Vivo Build/GRI40) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1) I have the high end 21.5' model with the i7 upgrade and 8GB of RAM. It runs FCP 7, FCP X, Premiere Pro, After Effects, whatever I ask of it really. More RAM would help so I would suggest third party RAM up to 12 or 16GB. That model iMac will certainly run stuff though. I do suggest at least a firewire 800 drive to store your files on as it makes an amazing difference in your editing.
Click to expand.An internal HDD is faster, but if that is the same HDD, that houses the OS, then an external Firewire HDD is better. When one uses the exact same HDD for he OS one runs and for the video footage one edits, then the OS has to fight for access time, as playing back video will access the video too. If one edits a small movie and does not have lots of footage and can live with the extra slow down, then one can store video one edits on the same HDD of course, but if you are a bit more serious about this, an extra HDD (internal or external) is much better. An internal HDD is faster, but if that is the same HDD, that houses the OS, then an external Firewire HDD is better. When one uses the exact same HDD for he OS one runs and for the video footage one edits, then the OS has to fight for access time, as playing back video will access the video too.
If one edits a small movie and does not have lots of footage and can live with the extra slow down, then one can store video one edits on the same HDD of course, but if you are a bit more serious about this, an extra HDD (internal or external) is much better.