[David Gallessich]

I had this issue. “No Cluster Found” etc. (Late 2013 iMac running Compressor 3.5.3.)
I tried almost everything, including Digital Rebellion’s Compressor Repair. Everything short of a re-install.
Nothing worked — until finally I stumbled on this, at Ken Stone’s blog:

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl949

Pro Applications Update 2010-02

Pro Application Update 2010-02 adds compatibility for new camera formats, improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues.

This update is recommend for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Server, and Logic Studio.

Application included in the update:

Final Cut Pro 7.0.3
Motion 4.0.3
Color 1.5.3
Compressor 3.5.3
Apple Qmaster 3.5.3
Cinema Tools 4.5.1

Post Date: Sep 15, 2010

File Size: 321.1 MB

[David Gallessich]

I recently deployed this with a late 2013 3.5Ghz iMac 27″:
Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt RAID.
I installed 2 discs: 4.0TB Toshiba MD01ACA Series.
Striped RAID 0 for speed, so there’s 8Tb of fast disc space.
Total price before shipping was $535.

With this iMac I’d gotten the largest internal SSD (1TB), but it still wasn’t enough room.
I have the SSD set up with 4 partitions: 2 boot partitions (Mavericks and ElCapitan), scratch drive, and a 500Gb work-space partition which is not large enough for some projects.

The Mercury is not perfectly quiet, but seems stable when used with the thunderbolt interface.
Blackmagic disc speed test says:
WRITE: 327 MB/sec
READ: 352 MB/sec
Not as good as the internal SSD (write:705MB/s, read: 714 MB/s)… but not bad.
I’m sure you could get some discs that would improve the I/O somewhat.
OWC claims it can get speeds up to 421/442, so about 30% faster than mine.

[David Gallessich]

Edward:

Mr. Weiss said it really well

“how much does a car cost.”

And Mr Suszko had it dead right on this part:

You can expect to spend a week to ten days, just logging and ingesting the footage.

It can easily take several hours just to log one hour of interview or monologue, especially if you really care about the result.

My all-time favorite quote on this is from Mike Nichols, speaking on NPR:

“You can change things in a movie right down to the last minute, because that’s what’s so great about film and mixing, and you never stop fussing with a movie. And they finally just have to take it away from you, because you’re still fixing.”

[David Gallessich]

Why not try running it in a bootable partition?

Or better: create a new system drive, install Mavericks (it’s free), and test there.

I’m running FC7 fine on Mavericks (newer machine, Late 2013 iMac, so Mavericks came installed).
At present I’m using two mavericks partitions: one for 7 and one ready for possible migration to FCX.
Currently using that second partition only for the new Compressor.

[David Gallessich]

OK, here’s another possibility …
I did a quick googling of “A/ProFX” and came up with this thread (see below, at bottom).
This was posted in 2010, and involved FinalCut Express. But the problem seems very similar, if not identical.

Because I did NOT do the step-by-step install of every final cut (from FCS to FCS HD), I don’t have LiveType loaded (and I didn’t see this problem).
Based on this discussion thread, I’m wondering if LiveType is an issue here.

So, it might be worth a try to install w/o LiveType, or perhaps try the method on this older thread.
(Also – “FCS REMOVER” from Digital Rebellion is a free app — might be handy in your situation.)

Here’s that discussion link: https://discussions.apple.com/message/10842881#10842881

Text of the final post in the thread:

This solution worked for me:

I installed FCE4 onto a brand new mini (10.6.2) and had the “/Library/Frameworks/ProFX.framework/Versions/A/ProFX” error.

After an hour of going though the results of googling “/Library/Frameworks/ProFX.framework/Versions/A/ProFX” I found this page:

https://blogs.oreilly.com/aperture/2008/03/apples-pluginmanager-173-utili.html.

And installing this fixed the problem. Now FCE4 opens as it should

https://www.apple.com/support/downloads/pluginmanager173.html

[David Gallessich]

I’ve been running fcp7 suite on the latest 27″ iMac since January (first on 10.9.1, now on 10.9.2).
I believe there are several others on this forum doing the same, so it should be possible for you also.

Two things that might help:
– You’ll need the latest proapps upgrade from apple, and Software Update should detect this.
– You may also need to install Perian tools for Quicktime. (It’s end-of-line, just like FCP7.)

I’ve experienced some transient video/audio latency issues in viewer window: annoying, not quite catastrophic. Biggest issue I’ve seen on the iMac is with external disks dismounting.

Please keep us posted on what you learn!

dg

[David Gallessich]

—
I’m just confused with the single core vs multi and 32 vs 64…
Arent the mac pro and iMac multi core and 64?…. Why do they show up in the single core category and is this category relevent or should i just look at the mutli core / 64 bits results?
—
Benchmarks only go so far.
One thing we’re missing in this thread is software.
Usually the steps are: 1) determine the software, then 2) buy the machine.
We still don’t know exactly what you plan to do with it, or how long you plan to use it.

FCP7 is 32bit, not 64.
Here’s a fun piece of rumor on that subject, right after FCP7 was killed:
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/30/apple-scrapped-completed-64-bit-final-cut-pro-8-to-build-final-cut-pro-x/

CPU cores
FCP 7.03 (the last version, now end-of-line) doesn’t always utilize multiple CPU cores.
Then, CPU horsepower matters a lot, because FCP7 also doesn’t use the GPU so much. Other things like using SSDs for system drive and data drives (or RAIDs) can help a lot in overall workflow (even better if it’s PCie, not SATA); but for pure crunching/rendering of video in FCP7, cpu can be the main bottleneck.

FCPX and the newest Compressor and Motion are built to use more of the computer’s architecture, so is Adobe Premiere.

———————————————————————
Here’s one authority on this (from 2011)
https://www.larryjordan.biz/faster-rendering-is-possible/

“PARTS of Final Cut Pro do take advantage of multiple processors — especially any new feature added in Final Cut 6 of 7. You mention ProRes, but portions of Log & Transfer, Multicam, and Alpha transitions would also fall into this category.

However it is also true that the majority of Final Cut Pro does not support multiple processors – for example, dynamic updating of the interface, video scopes, many transitions, filters, and motion effects. In other words, the older parts of the system.

This is the reason that I say that until FCP is rewritten, you will not get the performance you expect from a multi-processor system. For some things, yes; for others, no.”

and according to this (2013)…
https://www.larryjordan.biz/compressor-4-1-hardware-acceleration/
… with hardware acceleration available in the latest Apple Compressor software, you can get an iMac with i5 or i7 processor to really scream (though output quality may not be as good as multi-pass software encoding). Not sure, but from this article it appears that none of the Xeons (Mac Pros) will do this.

———————————————————————

As they say, “mileage may vary …”

dg

[David Gallessich]

Some benchmarks here:
https://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
(Four different categories including: single/multi core, and 32 versus 64bit)
These benches show really strong single-core performance on the newer iMacs, compared w every macPro.
(Wayyy better than the 2009 MP.) Multi-core not as good, but not shabby either.

I’m using a late 2013 iMac27 3.5Ghz with a TB-to-FW800 adapter and have no problems with it.
USB 3 IS having some ‘sleep’ issues with ext RAID, but pretty sure that’s a mavericks/SansDigital problem.
Compared with my 2006 MacPro, performance is often around 3x faster converting to/from h.264 –
feels like night ‘n day.

It does seem strange to be so much more reliant on ext storage.
That’s one reason I went for maximum (1Tb) internal SSD.

Earlier I had some audio latency issues on the the FCP7 viewer, but this seems to be resolved now.
Some folks are reporting issues with iMac and ext (USB) audio devices: seems to be only w Mavericks.

FWIW

[David Gallessich]

David – we’re all-ears here:
Do you have any more details beyond boot-partition-issues?

David Roth Weiss:
I’ve been testing FCS 3 under Lion for a few weeks, and for the most part it works just fine, but it’s not perfect.

I just saw this super positive review (see text below)
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15663817#15663817
so I’m tempted to make a clone (not just a partition) and give it a try:

“I can’t believe how much better FCP7 is running on Lion. I’m finising a documentary and trying to do the final renders. For the last few weeks FCP has been crashing half a dozen times a day. Dumped the preferences, cleared out folders, ect. Loaded Lion this morning, both FCP7 and Motion 4 are flying. Hasn’t crashed once, renders are going through much faster.
Apple should’ve just released Lion and not FCPX, and people would be loving them right now.”

I mean, if it appears more stable and actually faster, seems worth $30 + the effort.
But first I would like to see some more evidence than this one post.

I guess we’re all beta testers now, unless we wait until the next full upgrade (“Housecat”?) …

There’s a followup with more details here
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15666385#15666385
along with one bumpy review, right afterwards, on the same thread.

[David Gallessich]

I don’t shell out money to buy unknowns. If Apple declares its hand and explains what they’re actually selling the public for $300, that might change my opinion. Until then, I’m waiting on the sidelines.

And does this mean you’ll be making any revisions to that ‘seamless transition’ tutorial?

Based on what I’m-a-hearing,
I would need a new GPU, several beers and a lot more positive endorsements before I go- a-transitioning…