How Practical Is MiniMac for Video Editing? What Other Limitations

Now that I have two MacBooks (one for me, one for the Missus), I'm thinking about replacing -- or at least augmenting -- my nearly two year old Dell XPS 400 desktop with a high-end MiniMac. I thought about an iMac but I just don't like how the iMacs elevate the viewing angle of the display with 4+ inches of hardware in the case below the screen. I like my monitor right on the desk top, and if I get Mini I can adapt it to my existing display.
What I do at the desktop is mostly photo processing and some web development. I'm going to presume that the Mini with 2GHz and 2GB or RAM will be quite adequate for those purposes.
I have not done much video editing, but one of the reasons I'm moving to the Mac platform is because I keep thinking one of these days I'm going to. So the question becomes: without a dedicated, high-end video card/RAM, what are the limitations on video editing with a Mini?
I mean, the all come with iLife, and iMovie, and now iMovie HD-08, so I assume that even the Mini is capable of SOME video editing chores. I'm just wondering at what point I might hit a ceiling and start to wish I'd gone a different route.
I gather that the Mini is intended as an "entry level" Mac (not unlike the MacBook) so I wonder what other limitations users have encountered, if they've ever hit a point where they've said to themselves, "****, I should have gone another route..." ??
I'll spend some more time with some of these other threads too, but that's my primary issue at the moment.
Thanks,
--PS

Hi
+I gather that the Mini is intended as an "entry level" Mac (not unlike the MacBook)+
The MacBook and Mac Mini are very similar in that they both use laptop components and the specs are almost the same. Both use an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics, have a 667MHz FSB and a 2.5" 5400 RPM hard drive etc.
Whilst it doesn't answer your question, I'd be tempted just to hook up an external display, keyboard and mouse to the MacBook and see how you get on. I'd imagine the experience would be very similar to using a Mini, and you'd need a display, keyboard and mouse for the Mini anyway should you then decide to buy one (they're not included).
I expect hard drive speed and capacity would be one limitation, for the MacBook and Mini, but you could always hook up an external firewire drive etc.

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Thanks for the comments.
Sorry for this delay in answering. I didn't check if there was any comment because I didn't expect any.
a.
I should had expressed myself differently.
No, I have not monitored CPU usage because it is the hard drive which limits how fast my laptop works.
There is one advantage with having a track for video expanded rather than collapsed. One can see what one has already put on the timeline without moving the cursor. If one waits until the computer has generated pictures on the timeline.
But I realized that with my laptop one has to wait uncomfortably long for those pictures to be created. So it is faster to move the cursor to that position where I have guessed that I have already put the footage I want to find.
b.
I have not tested multiple monitors. Neither would I bother if CPU usage increased because it is the hard drive, not the CPU, which limits how fast my laptop works.
c.
I have not used Premiere CC so I have not checked the hardware requirements.
Unless I have misunderstood something, Premiere CC has somewhat higher hardware requirements than Premiere Elements. Understandable since professional camcorders use higher bit rate (more information per second) than cheaper camcorders.
So presumably I would be forced to split up my projects in even smaller parts to make everything manageable. On the other hand, using footage which is intra frame compressed rather than inter frame compressed would mean that the hardware needs to work less hard, so perhaps it would be possible to edit long projects.
At the same time, some professional programs can work with proxy files, and in that case the high bit rate for professional footage would be no problem.
Besides, unless something is wrong with my memory, Edius has somewhat lower hardware requirements than Premiere CC, so possibly that program would be more relevant for usage on my laptop.
Higher bitrate means that there is room for fewer hours with raw material on my single hard drive. So with 100 Mbps I would in practice be limited to creating movies which are at most about 40 minutes long.
One advantage with professional video editing software is that it can edit video with higher resolution than 1920*1080. But I doubt that would work on my laptop.
Thanks for your congratulations.
Yes it works. And after posting in another forum in my native language, another film maker commented that he had edited on a laptop with even less powerful CPU. For him it was also the speed of the hard drive which limited how fast his laptop worked.

How Practical Is MiniMac for Video Editing? What Other Limitations

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