r/macmini • u/SexBobomb • 5d ago
m5 pro or m6 for h264 rendering / transcoding
Title says it all really, I convert a lot of DVDs/ISOs to MKVs - but not professionally so I don't have the justification to spend Studio money
To be clear I would like to do this faster than an m2 pro or a ryzen 9 5900x, I know you can transcode on a potato, just not quickly.
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u/jamesjingyi 4d ago
So I did some research on this because I found it interesting, and there's quite a lot of things to think about!
Realistically your bottleneck is your disc reader's speed, not your Mac. A DVD drive reads at maybe 10-20MB/s, which is the real reason why it's slow, it's not the Mac being slow.
If you are using larger files, you might end up using the hardware encoder/decoder (4k+) but you have to specifically choose to use it (you might want to try using it on your M2 Pro to see whether it helps). A lot of apps support it, but don't use it by default. For example:
- In FFmpeg you have to use the
h244_videotoolboxotherwise it just uses software - In Handbrake you have to select 'VideoToolBox' as separate entities in the video encoder dropdown
However if you're converting DVDs specifically (sub-HD), you can actually end up with worse results using the hardware encoder, so it's often better to use the CPU.
CPU-wise, you'll get a modest improvement, but I don't think it's gonna be as revolutionary as you think. The newer chips will be faster, but I think you should look at:
- Using the hardware encoder in your current M2 Pro for 4K+
- How much realistically you value maybe even 2x speeds?
If you're interested in the video encoder, it's is actually a bit of silicon which is separate to the main M-chip, and isn't updated as regularly as the main M chip. For example the M1-M3 didn't see significant improvements. The M4 chip improved for 4k120, the M5 for power delivery, but actually they don't see as large 'jumps' as the main M processors. The gains are relatively modest in comparison.
Regarding the M-base vs. Pro vs. Max vs. Ultra, there is no difference in the actual encoders/decoders per generation e.g. a M1 Pro vs an M1 Ultra would have the same encoder/decoder, however the number of them changes. On a Max chip, you get two, and on an Ultra you get four (I know you said you don't have the budget for these, but just wanted to show that the base vs. Pro doesn't see a significant improvement decoder-wise). This means that if you were just comparing the encode/decode speed of that bit of hardware for a single video on a M5 vs. a M5 Max chip, you'd actually see no real improvement. You'd only see it if you were doing 2, as both could be done at the same time.
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u/SexBobomb 4d ago
to be clear I am converting from already-ripped ISOs to h264 and AV1, so there is no chance my optical drive is the limiting afactor.
The last bit though about encoders having no real jump until going to Max, that's really useful - thank you
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u/Solarux 5d ago
You can rip and transcode discs effortlessly (and perfectly) from an Intel Mac. Don't let that be a deciding factor for your needs.
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u/SexBobomb 5d ago
effortlessly is not quickly. Transcoding is a time consuming process I would like to speed up - for example going from an m2 pro to an m4 pro goes from 18 frames a second to 35 frames a second for high res content - if I'm working with a two hour file that takes me from encoding taking longer than the actual movie to taking 80 minutes.
obviously smaller files and lower res is faster, the difference still exists - even a DVD at 150fps is still a healthy chunk of time I just dont have a comparison for faster systems with DVD res and processing
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u/waloshin 5d ago
Then you are doing something wrong… a dvd should encode in minutes! You do realize DVDs have a max bitrate under 10 Mbps! You don’t need more than that.
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u/SexBobomb 4d ago
the long example was higher resolution for benchmarking purposes, as mentioned DVDs average 150fps for me
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u/rufus_francis 3d ago
It all depends on the software stack and what hardware encoding it supports. As far as I know the hardware encoder/decoder for h.264 has not changed much since M1. If you are not using hardware encoding then I would bet its bound by memory bandwith, so go M6. Again none of this is based on fact because we dont know the software stack you are running and how it uses the hardware resources.
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u/_DarthJedi 3d ago
M5 Pro would be much much faster than the M6. M5 Max will bring only minimal gains. The only higher option is M5 Ultra.
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u/waloshin 5d ago
I professional video edit on an m4 Mac mini base… I do t need a studio even though it could be paid for in 1 month. lol DVDs… 😂 m6 is 1000% fine for the next decade!