Final Cut Pro 7 on Macbook Pro

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Final Cut Pro 7 on Macbook Pro

Hi I am running Final Cut Pro 7 on my 2009 Macbook Pro. 13" 2.26GHZ with 4gb of Ram. I am wondering if how I should set up my final cut to optimize it for this 2 core machine. I have had a lot of troubles with dropped frames and clips. Which codecs should I be transcoding my videos into to optimize them for rendering on such a small computer and are there any specific settings I should change so Final Cut works better. I wouldnt mind having long render times just as long as everything worked as smoothly as possible. I have used Final cut on Mac Pros and never had problems no matter what the codec, I usually just convert everything to pro res 444. But im not sure if that will work on this tiny little core 2 duo processor with only 4gb of ram. Please let me know what I should do. (Sorry for the long post). Oh also I am running on Leopard, not snow leopard or lion but plan old leapord, would upgrading to snow leopard lion help me at all?

Final Cut Pro 7, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Aug 16, 2011 10:25 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 16, 2011 11:43 AM in response to Mark Stephen

Hi,

This is the Final Cut X forum. Your post actually belongs in the Final Cut Studio forum:

https://discussions.apple.com/community/professional_applications/final_cut_stud io

That said, you don't need to convert to ProRes 4444 unless your clips include alpha information. In fact, you may not need ProRes 422 HQ. Try using plain vanilla ProRes 422. That should be a big speed improvement.

Final Cut Pro 7 runs on only one core. Compressor can run multiple cores, so you could take advantage of your dual core machine by converting your incoming footage in Compressor, not Final Cut. When done editing, export using the same settings as your sequence to create a master file, then use Compressor to compress to something like H.264 or .m2v for distribution. That won't speed up Final Cut, but may speed up your overall workflow.

Also check your realtime settings on your Timeline to make sure they are Unlimited RT and playback quality Dynamic.

Finally, FCS 3 seems to be somewhat faster under Snow Leopard:

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/snow_not_to_blame_saraceno.html

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