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Final Cut Studio 3 – stay with Lion, go to Mt Lion or even Mavericks?
I updated my home iMac 27″ from 10.6.8 to 10.7.5 and sure enugh – my NLE and its apps seems to work just fine. FCS 7.0.3, Compressor, Soundtrack and even DVDSP!
Trying to find info on whether or not upgrade to 10.8 or even 10.9 leaves more questions than answers.
The normal path – install a CLEAN OS will not allow me to install FCS 3, because the Installer needs Rosetta which is not supported in Mavericks or Yosemite.
But upgrading an existing 10.6.8 to 10.7.5 seemed to have worked. I am considering doing this on the production suite at the office (it has an ancient Mac Pro, I think it’s an 2008). One thing that might cause problem is the Aja IoHD with its drivers… I reckon going to 10.7.x would work, but not 10.8 or 10.9?
My home iMac has nothing other than FireWire-disk attached when editing.
And no – there’ll be no FCPX for us as a production company. We will most likely switch to Premiere CC (and sure enough, Photoshop, Illustrator, After effects, etc). Reading on the net suggests that with XML we should be able to convert FCP 7 projects to Premiere CC. And it looks like our HPX500 is supprted for ingestion as well.
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7 Replies
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“The normal path – install a CLEAN OS will not allow me to install FCS 3, because the Installer needs Rosetta which is not supported in Mavericks or Yosemite.”
You answered your own question. Put this system in a bell jar and leave it alone. Get duplicate old systems or newer ones if you want to go forward from here.
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Apple stopped supporting FCS 3 (FCP 7 and all the apps it came with) at 10.8. That’s when they discontinued it. 10.9 and 10.10 are not compatible with Compressor and Motion. And I hear DVD SP has issues. FCP 7 mostly works, but not fully. what doesn’t work is random. Because Apple doesn’t take FCP 7 support into consideration anymore when it updates the OS.
The main thing is that FCP 7’s core is Quicktime. And the Apple is moving away from Quicktime and towards AV Foundation…the core of FCX.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Hi Shane,
You nailed my question – from what you say it looks like I could go to 10.7 and even 10.8 on an EXISTING system, with my FCP 3 intact?
The reason is that a number of other programs, plugins, etc are being not supported in 10.6.8. I must go to at least 10.7.
On my home iMac I did upgrade to 10.7 and from what I can tell, FCS 3 seems to work well.
So, on my office iMac (only used for backup editing) I figure I could go from 10.6.8 to 10.8, by just run the Mt Lion installer?
Or should I do it in two steps – first 10.7 (with all updates) and then go to 10.8? -
Some of us are using Studio 3 FCP 7.03 on a Mountain Lion OS 10.5 with no problems. Installed FCP 7.0 from disks on the OS 10.8.5 systems, then updated to 7.03. No Aja IoHD with its drivers, though. I’m thinking this combo will run in its bell jar as long as we need it.
Robert Withers
Independent/personal/avant-garde cinema, New York City
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hi Shane, you sound very knowledgeable about FCP-7. My issue:
Working on a long-form documentary on FCP-7. Started having issues with El Capitan: more frequent crashes. Thought of migrating to Avid, however, it is NOT optimized for EC. Spoke to Apple, one of the suggestions was to migrate back to 10.9.5. The software that came with my iMac, which works with FCP-7 and Avid.
Wow, mistake. Not only was it a pain, but the project would not open. Crashed any time I tried to do anything. Reinstalled FCP-7, still had problems. It works fine with a “small” project I have but not my documentary. Finally I found an older project file that seems too play. Lost (2) months of hard work_but I think there are problems around the corner.
Is the project corrupted?
Is it the FCP-7 program (someone gave it to me initially_so had to buy a serial # online in order to reinstall_original didn’t work)!
Any suggestions? Thinking of buying another FCP-7 program, but at this pointI’m a little spooked and I am thinking of moving to Avid if I can figure how to do that. Avid is looking into it for me.
I appreciate any help you can provide.
Matt
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There is no way to “migrate back to Mavericks.” Not well anyway. Not if you want things to work. ProApps are delicate, they need to be treated right. Migrating your OS is not the way to do that.
The only way to ensure things work is to back up your files…all of them (not the apps…all the files…apps you need to install fresh). After backing up, boot to the installer you want to install (In the case of Mavericks, you’ll need a USB stick installer…something you generally need to make yourself). Reformat the drive, install the OS from scratch. Update it fully. Then install all of your apps. And yes, this can take up your whole day, but is the best thing to do.
And if you ever think about updating your OS again, first CLONE your working OS to an external drive. Carbon Copy Cloner is best for this. Clone…then update. And if things don’t work…simply clone back to the one that worked.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thanx Shane. I did most of what you suggested except I intallto the OS that came with my computer in recovery, then reinstalled the programs including FCP-7. However, I was have problems. The project I had been working on would open and then crash with any maneuver. A different project (much smaller) seem to work fine but not the one (a doc) I’ve been working on for (5) years. Did manage to find an older project file that opened and played but I lost (2) mod of work and I’m still not apprehensive about the “stability” of the FCP-7 program!
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