Q: Does Final Cut Pro 7 work with Mavericks?

Don't upgrade then. Mavericks was written without any consideration to whether or not FCP 7 would work. It might, it might not. If you use the machine and FCP to earn a living, don't do it. Stick with the OS that works.

What do you have to gain by upgrading?

You can always create a small partition with Disk Utility and install Mavericks and FCP 7 on it.

Your Mac can then be run in Dual-Boot Mode whilst you test out the combination.

If and when you decide that the Mavericks/FCP 7 combination is OK,  you can delete the partition and install Mavericks as normal.

FWIW  I can run FCP 7 OK on Mavericks on my 2008 iMac but I do very little with it,  so I cannot vouch for all functions working properly.

Regarding the upgrade,  as Shakespeare  succinctly stated,  it's a matter of  "Much Ado About Nothing".

Software / hardware harmony is a tricky business. It really boils down to two strategies.

The first is what I call the lockdown model - which is what you've largely done and is often the model followed by people who MUST have a reliable system to do their work. This involves freezing the system at a known state where the hardware, OS and relevant software all work reliably and you can accomplish your tasks with a minimum of hassle. The upside is you come in, do your job, go home and don't have to think too much about the tool(s). The downside is if something breaks (usually hardware) or you need to change to a new software and it has been a long time (in computer terms) since there was any change, you often need to upgrade/update a LOT of stuff all at once - which is expensive, painful and highly disruptive.

The other model is the "merry go round" model. This is where you are on a gradual upgrade/update path. You wait a few months after new versions of your software come out which gives the early adopters time to identify and sort the issues. At that point you can often update/upgrade with a level of certainty the system will work. The upside of this path is you stay reasonably current with hardware, OS and software and, since you've done this gradually but continuously, the costs are spread out over a longer period of time. The downside is there will be hiccups and the system will need more troubleshootiing if something unforseen in the necessary installation goes bad.

In either path, it is imperative to keep a good working clone of a "known to be good" version of the system (OS & software).

Ian points out a good strategy to start the migration to a new OS. A partition with the new system/software to test that can be booted from your existing system is a time honored protocol.

One thing is certain, the great river of technology is not slowing down and if you make your living swimming in it, you must pay attention to where it's heading. This means trying to stay aware of the trends and thiinking over the horizon about how all that is going to affect your work.

Good luck,

x

Upgraded to Mavericks a few days ago.  No problems so far.  BUT... I've still got a snowleopard partition and that's what I usually work in. 

I have FCS 2009 running under 10.9, 10.8, 10.7, 10.6

FCP7 is usable in all of them. Can't say for the whole FCS 2009 suite though as I don't use Motion or DVDSP any more.

x

just tested dvdsp in Mavericks and it seems fine.  Haven't done any heavy lifting with it yet.

Can you partition with stuff already on the drive? I have Snow Leopard and around 125gb free. Can I make a partition for Mavericks and run FCPX on it, without deleting the stuff I have on it?

Can I also switch between the 2 OS in one session? Or do I need software for this?

Thanks!

You can make a partition without deleting anything on the original  .  .  .  .  .  I too found it difficult to believe until I first tried it a couple of years ago.

The easiest way to change partitions/OS whilst you are on one is to open System Preferences>Startup Disk where you will see the 2 partitions/OS, select the one you want and click Restart.

This should cover everything you need to know in great detail  .  .  .  .  it's actually much easier than it looks.

http://www.larryjordan.biz/create-a-dual-boot-mac-os-x-system/

The best, safe solution to Operating system upgrades IF you have any desktop Pros with Serial ATA slots for additional drives (which many including myself did not fully understand how to use) is to get an additional Serial ATA drives, which very easily can be simply slid into an available slot on Pro (Silver Box) models - then you can do a clean install of a new operating system completely safely on the new drive, and simply use "Startup DIsk" system preference to switch startup and safely install programs and run them under new circumstances. I am now running THREE simultaneous operating systems, Snow Leopard (because of Adobe GoLive and some older expensive software we rarely use), #2 Mountain Lion, and #3 Mavericks where we are slowly, safely, migrating as well from Final Cut Pro 7 (which always works in our stable Mountain Lion environment) to FCP X, (a.k.a iMovie Pro) which is a complete horror show in terms of file organization, new terminology and management. (The word "project" doesn't even exist, but let's not get started on that here). It's a one step startup in any environment we need under pressure.

So - for so many of you who have fears of "jumping" - get dedicated drives (partitions work but can just seem scarier, because it's still just one drive). Serial ATA's are available for as little as $39 now, and piece of mind. You can also feel better about "clean" installs - and the best part - you can still get to your files on the other drives while you are working on the alternate operating system. It's the best win/win.

and Thank you to many brilliant other suggestions mentioned here. Your time is appreciated.

Hi Scott Stark,

Just thought I'd add my two cent.. I run FCP7 along with the rest of the applications included within the suite on a 10.9 platform both at home and on my editing rig at work. Since the initial setup I've had very little problems aside from the odd freeze or lock-up which lets face it - can occur regardless of OS version.

Definitely no more than on an older 10.6.8 system which I used for several years prior to upgrading.

Just make sure everything is up to date namely the 7.0.3 application bundle update.

Cheers and Good luck!

Thanks for laying it out in those terms Studio X.

I've got to say, I've been in lockdown mode with a now 3 year macbook running 10.6.8.

I LOVE my Final Cut Studio and don't want to lose it.  It would be great to be working in a 64 bit space.  That's my only complaint.

When my computer finally craps out I'm just hoping that the new one I'm forced to buy will be backwards compatible with my cloned hard drive.

While FCP7 "works" with Mavericks, meaning that it doesn't crash and its commands do what you expect them to do, it doesn't work well under Mavericks or even under Mountain Lion.  At least this has been my experience with my mid-2012 MacPro (3,33GHz 6-Core, 14GB RAM, ATI HD 5770). The problem is with the playback quality in the canvas.  A 1920x1080 50p ProRes 422 with very fast editing, even single frames, caused horizontal band artefacts on playback.  The same happened after full render.  The same happened after exporting a QT file and putting it the FCP7 timeline.  I tried all permutations of the playback preferences.  There is no such problem with FCP7 under Snow Leopard.

Note that these were fresh installs of FCP7 in Mountain Lion and Mavericks. Note that the system itself has no trouble playing the fast edited video -- the mentioned QT export plays fine in QuickTime 7.6 -- it just plays badly in the FCP7 canvas.  This appears to be a problem with FCP7 running under Mountain Lion and Mavericks.  (I never tested it under Lion, so I don't know exactly when the problem arose post-Snow Leopard.)

The playback is quite a problem for editing, being unable to judge the visual effect of the fast edit.  So I still mostly use FCP7 under Snow Leopard.

I've not seen this problem reported.  Is there something unlucky about my Mountain Lion and Mavericks systems?  Or are the users of FCP7 under Mountain Lion and beyond so happy that it "works" that they relax their playback quality standards?   I can upload a bit of the problemmatic fast edited video if others want to check their FCP7 playbacks.

DC