Is the M1 Mac Mini/studio good for streaming/video capture?

[buckettraveler]

I mainly use Linux but I'm getting so sick of audio situation on there, setting everything up takes an hour before I capture video or stream because how Linux assigns audio devices. I don't really want to use windows for anything production, just games because it always has problems. I have consoles for backup when windows freaks out and the game won't run on Linux. I play games on it but I'm not a windows user so it just blows up on me occasionally. I know it isn't as cost effective as building a PC but like I said before I use Linux mainly, windows for games/VR, but Linux just is kinda mess with audio and once again I'm not really a windows user. I know I have said that already but I feel I need to make that clear. I know macs are expensive. I don't want to have that debate. The new studio mac and Mac Mini came out and I've wanted to get a mac for a while, I had the early intel macs when I was a kid and now have more money to splurge. Ok, hopefully the above tells everyone that I'm alright with the cost and I don't want to use windows for the capture/streaming. Don't want to get a bunch of comments on that.

Capture hardware wise currently I have a Magewell USB Capture HDMI Plus which isn't compatible with OSX ARM so I guess that is out and my other card is a Magewell Pro Capture HDMI which is compatible with the M1 chip but I guess I would need a PCIe to Thunderbolt case, I have found a few that should work, they all say they are for Apple notebooks.

As for mac mini vs studio mac is the mac mini good enough to capture and stream 4k? Right now my limitation is 1080p but I do want to somewhat futureproof an Apple purchase.

 

[shiggitay]

Okay so a few things. The M1 Mac mini has been out for almost 2 years at this point (it was one of the first Macs to get the M1 chip), and the new M1 Max/Ultra machines are called the Mac Studio. One last nitpick I have is that macOS hasn't been called Mac OS X since 2016.

With that out of the way, yes. I own two M1 Macs (an M1 Mac mini and an M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14") and they are excellent for capturing and streaming to Twitch/YouTube etc. What's funny is that I used to have the Magewell Pro Capture HDMI, but it wasn't playing nicely with Linux (I'm also a Linux fan), so I sold it. I never tried using it with macOS though... I have an Intensity Pro 4k from Black Magic Design running in a Thunderbolt to PCI-E enclosure and it works super well on my M1 Mac mini. I can capture analog and digital footage with ease. I can also stream super easily and gracefully using the aforementioned capture card. I'm not saying to go out and get the IP4k as it it's a $200 capture card, and then you'd need to get the TBolt-PCI-E enclosure for it, but if you have the money to spare I'd say it's one of the best PCI-E capture cards on the market for its price. It came out in 2015, so there might be better options out there. I just use what I have available to me. I also have a USB3 capture device from a company called Plugable called the NIXX that I use for my analog game consoles and as my mobile capture device, but I won't go into how my capture hardware is setup as it isn't relevant to what you're asking.

When it comes to capturing and streaming in 4k I don't have any experience with that so I can't really comment on it, but 1080p streaming and capture should work just fine on any M1 Mac you end up getting. Capturing in 4k without streaming should work fine as the M1 family of chips has excellent encode and transcode hardware onboard. It's quite amazing. If you need an M1 Mac RIGHT NOW I'd suggest getting which ever one you can and want to afford, and go from there. Lastly, with the M1 native version of OBS presumably right around the corner you'll be in good shape for your captures/streams. Right now unless you compile your own version of OBS for M1 (it'll be missing the Twitch/YT integration API that was added in a recent release) your only option is to use the existing Intel release under Apple's translation layer called Rosetta 2. It runs using Rosetta, but it's not as efficient with CPU/GPU usage as it would be if it was running natively. I hope any of that made sense. If you have any other questions feel free to post again and we'll try and help you out.

 

[buckettraveler]

One last nitpick I have is that macOS hasn't been called Mac OS X since 2016.

Ha, yep, that is about the last mac I owned was just before that. OSX sounds so much cooler than macOS though.

Do you have links to the exact Thunderbolt to PCI enclosures you have? How many PCI cards do they hold, just one per case? I have the Magewell with a breakout cable that just about anything can plug in. I have had trouble with the USB devices on Linux but the PCI cards I have never had problems with.

So I'm not a Apple fan, I do video editing, well, and everything else on Linux so this will be a dedicated OBS machine so I might just go with the Mac mini. I'll look again for 4k capture with macs to see if I need the studio with it's newer M1 chip. My other option is use windows, I'm not a fan of Apple but I HATE windows so this is why I'm going this rout. Windows is just for games, nothing else.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

From my experience I can tell you the base Mac Studio absolutely kills it when it come to streaming/recording, assuming you use the hardware encoder anyway.
The MacBook Air also handles it just fine but it can chug along if you use many sources and also have an external 4K display hooked up to it, it doesn't become unusable or anything but it gets a little toast and some things become choppy.

 

[buckettraveler]

From my experience I can tell you the base Mac Studio absolutely kills it when it come to streaming/recording, assuming you use the hardware encoder anyway.
The MacBook Air also handles it just fine but it can chug along if you use many sources and also have an external 4K display hooked up to it, it doesn't become unusable or anything but it gets a little toast and some things become choppy.

Hmm, I don't have a 4k display for it, I have QHD, and the mac would only be using that so I don't need it to drive multiple monitors. I'll have one for the mac to run OBS and one for my PC running either Linux or Windows just for games and consoles. Right now I even use a tablet for chat, I could throw that on the mac screen.

So as far as driving monitors I only need enough power for one QHD. That is what I use on the machine that runs OBS now and that is more than enough for it.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

Hmm, I don't have a 4k display for it, I have QHD, and the mac would only be using that so I don't need it to drive multiple monitors. I'll have one for the mac to run OBS and one for my PC running either Linux or Windows just for games and consoles. Right now I even use a tablet for chat, I could throw that on the mac screen.

So as far as driving monitors I only need enough power for one QHD. That is what I use on the machine that runs OBS now and that is more than enough for it.

You should be totally fine then, I only really mentioned the 4K monitor thing because that was my use case. It definitely has an impact on the base M1.
The M1 Max on the other hand? It's like the thing is not even there lol

 

[TFE]

Thanks "H" and "S" for the foregoing. Question: Are you both using Monterey? I stream twice a week a two-hour live show with four-cameras, videos/slides via capture card from a second Mac laptop, and bringing in live guests using Skype via NDI from another Mac laptop. OBS is running on a base-model M1 Mac mini (only 8gb) running Big Sur, and it handles 18 multi-layered scenes at 1080p/30fps with no trouble — very few dropped frames, and only 25-30% CPU usage using the Apple Hardware encoder. Previously I was using x264 , and CPU usage was approx 50% with more but a tolerable 5% frames dropped. So I find the hardware encoder (under Settings/Output/Output Mode/Advanced) is MUCH better. Previously I've seen advice to use the hardware encoder only for recording, and use x264 for streaming, but with the latest release of OBS (27.2.4) one can now use the hardware encoder to both stream and record (assuming you use the same stream settings for the recording). At least that's my experience of the past few days. But back to the question: I've been afraid to upgrade the Mac mini to Monterey, as there are reports on here and the OBS Discord that there are problems. So I am waiting for the new OBS build that will run natively on the M1 chips without the Rosetta layer before upgrading to Monterey. Or? Any advice appreciated, as I would like to buy a Mac Studio (which comes with Monterey) and start using that as the OBS computer and, hopefully, it is powerful enough for me to ditch one or two of the laptops mentioned above.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

Thanks "H" and "S" for the foregoing. Question: Are you both using Monterey? I stream twice a week a two-hour live show with four-cameras, videos/slides via capture card from a second Mac laptop, and bringing in live guests using Skype via NDI from another Mac laptop. OBS is running on a base-model M1 Mac mini (only 8gb) running Big Sur, and it handles 18 multi-layered scenes at 1080p/30fps with no trouble — very few dropped frames, and only 25-30% CPU usage using the Apple Hardware encoder. Previously I was using x264 , and CPU usage was approx 50% with more but a tolerable 5% frames dropped. So I find the hardware encoder (under Settings/Output/Output Mode/Advanced) is MUCH better. Previously I've seen advice to use the hardware encoder only for recording, and use x264 for streaming, but with the latest release of OBS (27.2.4) one can now use the hardware encoder to both stream and record (assuming you use the same stream settings for the recording). At least that's my experience of the past few days. But back to the question: I've been afraid to upgrade the Mac mini to Monterey, as there are reports on here and the OBS Discord that there are problems. So I am waiting for the new OBS build that will run natively on the M1 chips without the Rosetta layer before upgrading to Monterey. Or? Any advice appreciated, as I would like to buy a Mac Studio (which comes with Monterey) and start using that as the OBS computer and, hopefully, it is powerful enough for me to ditch one or two of the laptops mentioned above.

Yup, I'm running Monterey and I'm having no issues whatsoever with one of the M1 builds of OBS you can find around
I even have some plugins that I managed to get running natively by compiling them myself.

Personally I use the hardware encoder for streaming and I've never had people complain to me about any weird stuff going on so I'm not sure about x264... I could actually use it now that the M1 Max has power to spare but I still prefer hardware encoding.

 

[Talonis]

I run 27.2.4 on Monterey, using the hardware encoder for both streaming and recording on a M1 MacBook Air and never had an issue. Running in high frame rate Quad HD – very smooth, no frames dropped.

My approach has always been to run with as few extra third party plugins as possible. The closer you are to vanilla the closer you are to having fewer problems.

 

[Goforth Titus]

So, in conclusion can i buy a mac mini m2 or m1 for live streaming instead of a windows?