Is FCP7 compatible with Sierra

[Graham King]

Yes, I know I'm crazy for continuing to use FCP7. I do a bunch of stuff in Premiere but FCP7 still does a great job for a few certain things in my workflow.

I'm having problems with my Mac Pro so I may be forced to update to Sierra even though I usually wait a good year or more to install a new OS.

Has anyone tried using FCP7 with Sierra? I would love to hear from anyone who has tried.

Thanks

 

[e1me5]

I dont know what your exact setup is in terms of hardware (monitors, capture cards etc) but for me FCP 7 works fine.

 

[pwhitehead]

I dont know what your exact setup is in terms of hardware (monitors, capture cards etc) but for me FCP 7 works fine.

Motion doesn't work though, right? Motion hasn't worked since Yosemite.

 

[e1me5]

Motion doesn't work though, right? Motion hasn't worked since Yosemite.

Nope. When you click on it, a dialogue box appears prompting you to buy the latest version from the App store

 

[pwhitehead]

Nope. When you click on it, a dialogue box appears prompting you to buy the latest version from the App store

Thought so.. Unless I'm doing very basic NLE editing from capturing VHS tapes. I always use Premiere CC for my paid work.

 

[e1me5]

Thought so.. Unless I'm doing very basic NLE editing from capturing VHS tapes. I always use Premiere CC for my paid work.

I am a FCPX guy. Wonderful investment.

 

[MSastre]

I am a FCPX guy. Wonderful investment.

I'm an FCPX guy myself, and definitely agree it's a great program. I have not adopted Sierra yet and most likely will wait a while.

 

[LiveM]

Premiere Pro made me dread editing. FCPX saved me from avoiding video altogether - it brought back the pleasure and also saved me hundreds in software costs. I wish I had never even started with anything else.

 

[Boyd01]

Well I am actually still on FCP 6 and still running MacOSX 10.8.5. I have a lot of other expensive legacy software and it became more of a hassle to try and get it working with each new operating system update. AFAIK, FCP 6 and 7 are pretty much the same under the hood, they just added a few features to 7. How did you get it running under El Capitan, let alone Sierra? In the past, I just used the migration assistant when moving to a new machine or operating system, and it worked. Is that what you did?

Recently I tried installing it on El Capitan by just copying the program and support files, but it crashed on startup saying it wasn't compatible. Got the same problem with Mavericks. So I ended up dedicating my Mini to video editing and keeping it on FCP 6 / Mountain Lion. Works very well for me, I am in the middle of making a documentary from 480i footage that I shot in 2002, and have over 200 other legacy DV/HDV tapes that I will be capturing after that. So my present needs are pretty simple.

But, looking ahead, I have the free trial of FCP X installed under El Capitan on an external drive and have been playing with it. As a test, I used the 7toX app to convert my current project and it worked very well (subject to the known limitations). I think I could probably adapt to FCP X fine, but not while I'm in the middle of a big project. Also playing around with DaVinci Resolve, since it's free.

FCPX seems to run fine on my mini (2012 2.5ghz dual i5 with 16gb RAM) but then I noticed it was only displaying one field of the video. When I checked the option to show both fields, it started dropping frames on my external monitor. I'm using a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor which connect via thunderbolt. All the project files and video clips are stored on a USB 3.0 drive that clocks at 180MB/sec with the BlackMagic test. And this same machine has absolutely no problem showing full quality video (both fields) running under FCP 6/Mount Lion.

Have I missed some sort of setting in FCPX? Or is my mini really not powerful enough to work with full quality 480i SD footage under FCPX? If so, guess I will be sticking with FCP6 for the foreseeable future,

 

[e1me5]

How did you get it running under El Capitan, let alone Sierra? In the past, I just used the migration assistant when moving to a new machine or operating system, and it worked. Is that what you did?

Kind of. I restored the contents of my old 2010MBP to the new 2012 MBP via Time machine. FCP 7 was installed since 10.6 (snow leopard) and it was copied as well to the new MBP with no problems. Every year I update to the new OS X and FCP 7 still works like the first time. I've also installed FCP 7 to a 2009 MBP with 10.11, but I don't know if the old hardware made any difference.

FCPX seems to run fine on my mini (2012 2.5ghz dual i5 with 16gb RAM) but then I noticed it was only displaying one field of the video. When I checked the option to show both fields, it started dropping frames on my external monitor. I'm using a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Monitor which connect via thunderbolt. All the project files and video clips are stored on a USB 3.0 drive that clocks at 180MB/sec with the BlackMagic test. And this same machine has absolutely no problem showing full quality video (both fields) running under FCP 6/Mount Lion.

Have I missed some sort of setting in FCPX? Or is my mini really not powerful enough to work with full quality 480i SD footage under FCPX? If so, guess I will be sticking with FCP6 for the foreseeable future,

From where do I access these options for displaying both fields of interlaced video? Is it from FCPX or from the ultrastudio preferences? Sorry, I don't usually work with DV/HDV, it is mostly progressive files from DSLRs, RED cameras and ProRes files from external recorders. I want to check this with some dv files I have lying around to verify if it is the lack of a dedicated GPU that your mac mini hasn't (if i am correct you have the dual core i5 2012 mac mini with intel 4000 integrated gpu, which is not that powerful for FCPX since it relies a lot on a GPU to display video) or it is a general problem of FCPX that causes the drop frames.

 

[Boyd01]

I am using Window > Viewer Display > Show Both Fields in FCPX. Makes a big difference in the quality of the external display (480i doesn't have a whole lot of pixels to begin with, LOL).

Yes, you are correct about my Mini, HD 4000. But I don't see how that would be an issue, the graphics card is not involved with showing external video. Data is sent over thunderbolt and the BlackMagic hardware does the "heavy lifting". This is sort of the new version of firewire external video in legacy FCP.

My current camera in an XDCAM-EX and I usually shoot 1080p24, but a treasure trove of live performance video that I shot during the period 2001-2011 has just come back home. Some of it is historically significant, so I'm going to be living in a 480i world for awhile now.
[doublepost=1475081143][/doublepost]Also wanted to add, trying FCPX again just now and it doesn't seem to be dropping frames. Weird, will have to spend more time with it to see exactly what's happening. Haven't had the chance to really dig into this new software yet.

 

[LiveM]

I use the same Mini with SSD and have absolutely no problems working with high-bitrate 4K footage on a portable HDD on FCPX. I choose the option to use proxy files during editing.

 

[Boyd01]

I choose the option to use proxy files during editing.

Thanks, good to know. But just so I understand… in other words, you are seeing a low(er) resolution version on an external screen while editing? That's what I get while only viewing one interlaced field and everything is very responsive. But I'm used to seeing a full resolution version while I edit.

Have played a bit more, and it isn't obviously dropping frames so often, but overall the playback just looks better and smoother under FCP6 on the same machine. However, the FCPX interface feels very smooth and doesn't lag even when I am showing both fields. So it seems like the Mini is capable of handling it. Maybe smooth playback on an external device just wasn't a big priority in the FCPX design?

 

[e1me5]

I am using Window > Viewer Display > Show Both Fields in FCPX. Makes a big difference in the quality of the external display

Oh cool! You learn something new every day! I will try it to see if it makes any difference during playback.

in other words, you are seeing a low(er) resolution version on an external screen while editing?

If you choose to work with proxies in FCPX, it transcodes automatically your footage to low bitrate ProRes versions with the same resolution. But I don't know how it handles 4k, like down converting to 1080 Prores or it keeps the resolution the same. I think there is an option to select what kind of proxie files to create.
However, FPCX sometimes, mostly when you work with compressed video like h264 and apply and effects or color correction, it plays back a lower resolution video if it didn't have the chance to render the clip. After it renders though it plays back full res.

Have played a bit more, and it isn't obviously dropping frames so often, but overall the playback just looks better and smoother under FCP6 on the same machine. However, the FCPX interface feels very smooth and doesn't lag even when I am showing both fields. So it seems like the Mini is capable of handling it. Maybe smooth playback on an external device just wasn't a big priority in the FCPX design?

Definitely the Mini is capable of handling it. The MacBook with it's weak CPU can handle up to 4k with no problem, the Mini is more powerful than that! It might be a bottleneck somewhere causing the dropped frames. But from my experience, during the last 3 years cutting with FCPX, learned that the heaver your footage is, the faster your storage place must be in order to play back smoothly.
But for sure it gets better every year. Can't wait to see what the next update will bring to us!

 

[RCAFBrat]

Also wanted to add, trying FCPX again just now and it doesn't seem to be dropping frames. Weird, will have to spend more time with it to see exactly what's happening. Haven't had the chance to really dig into this new software yet.

I'm not an expert but I suspect that FCPX was rendering the original video file to ProRes in the background.

This feature can be turned off, left as is or, as suggested, you could use proxy media. My son, who has made several short films using FCPX, lets it render in the background but may wait for effects or changes to be rendered before scrubbing or playing back the timeline.

If you find the rendered files are playing back more slowly than in FCP 6 then perhaps check the project settings - maybe you are background rendering to a much higher resolution which will eat resources (eg bottleneck at i/o due to larger than necessary file size) but not give any added detail?

Best of luck

 

[Boyd01]

I'm not an expert but I suspect that FCPX was rendering the original video file to ProRes in the background.

Thanks, good idea, but that was the first thing I thought of so I checked and there were no background processes. I will check project settings, but don't think that's the problem, it is showing 480i as the format.
[doublepost=1475107893][/doublepost]

Definitely the Mini is capable of handling it.

Oh, for sure, it is "handling it"! If I just ran the program without the external monitor I wouldn't have noticed anything. That is probably what people are doing on the MacBook due to the lack of ports.

My original plan was to use my MacBook Air, which has a dual i7, 8GB RAM and 512GB ssd. Geekbench score is about 10% higher than my mini, which isn't much though. But the problem is the lack of ports, if I use the Thunderbolt port for external video, then there's no way to connect a larger screen for the timeline/browser/etc. I got an OWC dock to deal with that, but it wouldn't work reliably so I sent it back and switched to the Mini that I've had for a couple years. It has all the ports I need, including firewire for my tape deck.

 

[will moindrot]

Still using FCP7 here too. Also Premiere and FCPX. Anyway I took a video of my install and initial running of Final Cut Pro 7 on Sierra. Only tricky thing was running the Pro Apps update taking it to 7.0.3. But apart from that running fine

Yes, I know I'm crazy for continuing to use FCP7. I do a bunch of stuff in Premiere but FCP7 still does a great job for a few certain things in my workflow.

I'm having problems with my Mac Pro so I may be forced to update to Sierra even though I usually wait a good year or more to install a new OS.

Has anyone tried using FCP7 with Sierra? I would love to hear from anyone who has tried.

Thanks

 

[Boyd01]

That is pretty cool. Unfortunately it's not so simple on FCP 6, because the installer is a PowerPC application* even though FCP is universal, so you can't just do a "normal" install of Final Cut Studio ever since Rosetta was dropped with Lion. But you can migrate an existing installation from an older computer or Time Machine backup, which is what I did.
___________
* Actually, I read somewhere that the FCP 6 installer really isn't a PowerPC application, but something about the way it was created makes it appear to be Power PC. Either way, it stopped working with Lion.

 

[OrinHD]

Still using FCP7 here too. Also Premiere and FCPX. Anyway I took a video of my install and initial running of Final Cut Pro 7 on Sierra. Only tricky thing was running the Pro Apps update taking it to 7.0.3. But apart from that running fine

This is BRILLIANT and exactly what I needed to see! Thank you SO MUCH!!

 

[Graham King]

Thanks for all the replies and especially @will moindrot for the video. I did in fact update to Sierra and am running FCP 7 successfully.

 

[fici79]

Thanks for all the replies and especially @will moindrot for the video. I did in fact update to Sierra and am running FCP 7 successfully.

Did you just upload your system to sierra or rather had to install fcp from the beginning?

 

[Mathesar]

Did you just upload your system to sierra or rather had to install fcp from the beginning?

Still using FCP7 here too. Also Premiere and FCPX. Anyway I took a video of my install and initial running of Final Cut Pro 7 on Sierra. Only tricky thing was running the Pro Apps update taking it to 7.0.3. But apart from that running fine

THANKS !!! I'm SO happy !!!! Walking on the ceiling now.

 

[Graham King]

Did you just upload your system to sierra or rather had to install fcp from the beginning?

I did a clean install because I was having other problems.

 

[mabok]

I'm using FCP7 under El Capitan on my Macbook Pro.. coz my workplace still using FCP7.

 

[apiMac]

Yes, I know I'm crazy for continuing to use FCP7. I do a bunch of stuff in Premiere but FCP7 still does a great job for a few certain things in my workflow.

I'm having problems with my Mac Pro so I may be forced to update to Sierra even though I usually wait a good year or more to install a new OS.

Has anyone tried using FCP7 with Sierra? I would love to hear from anyone who has tried.

Thanks

I got FCP7 working with MacOS Serria 10.12.6 (seems to work and exports)