second hand FCP

[Todd Gillespie]

You can upgrade to Final Cut Studio (FCP6) only. FCP7 is Intel Macs only.
That machine is fine for doing SD DV work. Motion and Color will bog down, but the other apps will run fine.
There are additional 3D templates with FCS and the integration is good-plus the new ProRes codecs, but not much difference beyond that for DV work.
You are very limited in the hardware upgrading; graphics cards, more RAM and faster HD are all you can do. Keep in mind though that it’s getting harder to find good graphics cards since the hardware design is older.

The big issue with that system is that’s it’s NOT Intel based. We finally just recently upgraded our Macs to Intels, so I know it will start to become an issue if you need to buy additional software. Adobe can’t install and a lot of other programs are now starting to write to Intel Macs only.
So if you buy the system, you kind of need to be happy with where it’s at NOW, because you’ll have few options to add hardware and software.

FWIW,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production

[Anand Shankar]

Thanks Todd. That helps me know where I am with this system.

[Anand Shankar]

Hi Todd! Given the system I am buying, will FCP6 slow down the machine?

[Todd Gillespie]

Anand,

It’s not that[Anand Shankar] “will FCP6 slow down the mac”
It’s more like FCP6 will not run as fast on your Mac.

If you’re just editing DV, you can hardly tell the difference in speed on a Dual or a newer Mac. (Obviously a new Mac is going to compress, render, import/export much faster)

Good Luck,

Todd at UCSB
Television Production