Imagine a tiny little iPad 2 rendering video faster than far more expensive and powerful iMac’s, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros. \u00a0Well, it happened. \u00a0One man decided to see how the iMovie app for the iPad 2 performed against iMovie running on the rest of the Mac lineup. \u00a0The results have surprised nearly everyone.<\/p>\n
Tim Chaten at AppAdvice<\/strong> was the one who decided to run the test. \u00a0So he took some video files to his local Apple Store and ran the test on three off-the-shelf Macs.<\/p>\n In the first test, he simply copied the files onto competing devices. \u00a0It took about 25 seconds to copy the files onto the iPad 2. \u00a0The closest competitor, an expensive Mac Pro, took about 56 seconds.<\/p>\n Next he tried rendering an unedited<\/em> 720p movie. \u00a0Once again, the iPad 2 won. \u00a0It took 1 minute and 56 seconds to render the video. \u00a0And once again, the closet competitor was the Mac Pro, clocking in at 2 minutes and 15 seconds.<\/p>\n Then he tried rendering an edited<\/em> video…adding titles, music and photos. \u00a0And this is where the iPad 2 stumbled…kind of. \u00a0It took 2 minutes and 5 seconds to render the video, while the speediest Mac, a 17 inch MacBook Pro, completed the task in 1 minute and 48 seconds.<\/p>\n But is this a clear indication that the iPad 2 is the best choice for speedy video rendering? \u00a0Not exactly. \u00a0The files that were tested came from an iPod, meaning they were already in an optimal format for iOS devices. \u00a0And the iPad 2 iMovie app is a stripped down version of the full Mac version.<\/p>\n But on the plus side for the iPad 2, it does contain a built-in H.264 encoder and uses speedy solid-state storage. \u00a0Those are features that regular Macs can’t claim.<\/p>\n Yet ultimately, you’ve got to keep file sizes in mind. \u00a0While Macs can accommodate terabytes worth of storage, the top iPad 2 can only do 64 GB. \u00a0And since video files tend to be huge, that’s the biggest stumbling block on the iPad 2.<\/p>\n