Final Cut Pro v. 6.0.6 and MAc OS High Sierra

[David Roth weiss]

No!

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Shane Ross]

Sorry, the last OS to officially support FCP 6 was 10.5. The last to support FCP 7 was 10.6.8. Many components of FCS 3 (FCP 7) broke with 10.9.5. And Apple officially announced that FCP 7 would not work in Mojave, period. So I’m pretty sure that FCP 6 working in the previous OS, High Sierra, would be a pipe dream.

Sorry, but FCP 6 is over 10 years old…and with any software that old, the later the OS version, the more chance of that old software not working. If you rely on FCP 6 and need it to work, then you need to run it on a machine with an OS that supports it. Or at least a partition of a hard drive with an older OS, that you can boot too when needed.

The only way to get FCP 6 to work on that laptop now is to partition the hard drive and run an older OS on it. This might mean wiping the drive and doing everything from scratch…making the two partitions, installing the different OS versions on each partition, and then installing your apps. You MIGHT be able to partition the HD now to do that, but if it’s very full, it won’t really work. And honestly, you risk causing issues.

So…alas, if you want to run the older FCP 6, you need to run an older OS. If you need the newer OS for some things, then you need to have two partitions on this computer…or two separate computers. BUT, regardless, if you need FCP 6 to work, you need to start from scratch on it…install an older OS and reinstall the software. There’s no way to install an older OS on the current computer…regress back.

Sorry.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Raul Alvarez]

Hi Shane;

Thank you so much for your thorough response. I appreciate your time to explain in detail.

Be well, and all the best for you.

Raúl

[Mark Suszko]

Raul, this is karma, telling you, it’s time to move on. If finances are an issue, you might try DaVinci Resolve for free, it’s pretty similar in feel to FCP-6/7.

I was where you are now, just about two weeks ago. My home setup was FCS3/ FCP-7 until this month. It was getting more and more impossible to work with. I resisted change as long as I could but had reached a crisis point. I nuked everything, and started afresh in Mojave with a new install of FCPX. I’m missing seven less every week, as FCPX has so much more capability, and is so much faster.

via GIPHY

[Raul Alvarez]

Thanks Mark…
Yes indeed! “Renew or Die!”… I’m gradually swallowing the “Loss”, and as with many other things in life, –and just like you wrote– simply move on and discover the new.

In 1997 I started with AVID and learnt it up to truly Love it, until 2006 when I HAD TO ($$$) switch to FCP.

Thank you so much for the tip of DaVinci Resolve. I’ll take a look at it. Yes money is the issue for not much work happening…
I had thought about going back to AVID, or trying FCPX or Premier… so DaVinci might be a good option.

LOL !!! on “Sometimes Dead is better”… ;)))

Once again Thank you for your response, and all the best for you and your work ahead!

Raúl
—
“Land Awakening”
Exploring our relationship with the Land.
landawakening[dot]com
vimeo[dot]com/ondemand/LandAwakening

[Raul Alvarez]

Hi again Shane…

Resurrecting this post after 1 year an 9 months!
I need to revive a LARGE PROJECT (feature Doc) that I have on FCP 6.0.1 and I will be acquiring an old iMac to do so.
Currently I cannot open the project because I’m using a PowerBook Retina, 15 inch, late 2013 with OS Catalina 10.15.7. (**Disk pretty full, no realistic chances to partition without messing up my life big time!)

So I have three questions:
1. Which iMac would you suggest me to get and which would be the best choice of OS (in your last response you mentioned 10.5… any better that would work?)

2. Would FCP 7 open this project fine, without issues? (Editing is quite straight forward, practically no special effects, very simple graphics…)

3. Currently I’m learning and editing on Premier Pro 2020.
If I export an XML from the FCP v 6 would I be able to open it on Premier Pro, and continue working on the film? If so could you kindly offer tips and advise on doing this?

Thank you so much in advance.

[Dennis Couzin]

The suggestion to make your computer dual bootable, now with both an OS 10.9 partition and an OS 10.15 partition, probably won’t work, for two reasons. (Space on drive isn’t a reason, since you can install a larger one.) First, when you updated to 10.15 you likely updated your firmware too. The new firmware probably won’t allow your computer to run under 10.9, even from an external drive. Second, the update to 10.15 surely reformatted your hard drive to APFS. OS 10.9 can’t operate with that new file system.

I suggest you edit using FCP 6 (or 7) from an external drive, and with OS 10.12 (Sierra) rather than 10.9 (Mavericks) as the operating system. Put OS 10.12 onto a USB 3.0 (or Thunderbolt) external SSD and check if it can boot your computer. (Alternatively borrow one, or ask someone who knows Macs really well.) If it can, then install the old FCP 6 onto it. FCP 7 runs half decently under OS 10.12, so hopefully FCP 6 will too. If you are not terribly demanding, a USB 3.0 connection will let you edit happily with the old FCP.

If this works it’s no harder and much cheaper than setting up a new computer.

FCP 7 will open FCP 6 project files.

[Raul Alvarez]

Thanks for your response Dennis,

can you expand on this?:
“FCP 7 will open FCP 6 project files.”

Can I just Straight Forward open the FCP 6 in FCP 7?

or do I have to create XML’s?

Thanks

[Shane Ross]

You’ll need an OLD used iMac if you plan on continuing to use FCP Legacy. Talking one that can run High Sierra, which is as high as you can really go. So like a 2015 model, or earlier. Your BEST bet would be to convert the project to XML and move forward with Premiere pro. Zero point in trying to shell out money to keep this in FCP.

email me at comeback at mac dot com and I will convert the project for you, free of charge.

[Dennis Couzin]

Raul, FCP 7 can directly open even FCP 4 project files. That’s as far back as I go.

During the opening, FCP7 announces: “The file format of the project is from an earlier version. Would you like to update this project file?” Click: Yes.

Concerning operating systems for FCP 7, I still use Lion 10.7.5 because with my MacPro system there’s imperfect playback in the FCP 7 Canvas with all later operating systems — some frame ripping. No one else has confirmed that problem. FCP 7 works decently through Sierra 10.12.6 — one can edit. A March post in this forum, “Final Cut Pro 7 now works in Mojave and High Sierra using Retroactive”, raised further hopes for FCP 7.

Dennis