What format(s) can I work with instead of Apple Pro Res 422 in Final Cut 6.0.6 on a 2007 MacBook Pro?

Do you have your media stored on an external drive? How is that drive connected to your computer?

MtD

In Final Cut, click on one of the source clips in the FCP Browser to select it. Once it is selected, type Command + 9 to see the item properties for the clip. Either report those properties here, or tale a screen shot of the Item Properties and post that here.

Next, click anywhere in your timeline, and then type Command + 0 {zero} to see your Sequence Settings. Either report those settings here, or take a screen shot of the Sequence Settings and post that here.

Is your timeline set to playback with Dynamic Video Quality and Dynamic Frame Rate?

MtD

I don't remember if FCP6 has the ProRes LT codec, but you could try that and see if you get improved performance. The quality impact on your video, since it is sourced from H.264, should be minimal.

The other option would be to transcode the source footage to HDV, but that opens up another can of worms.

MtD

Sorry, but no. And to convert it you need to have FCP 7, in order to use an app called 7toX

http://assistedediting.intelligentassistance.com/7toX/

Export an XML of the project, import that into Premiere. All the footage and the sequence will be there. No fuss, no muss.

Premiere is format agnostic...it works with pretty much anything. It works with camera formats natively, no need to convert. It works great with ProRes...H.264, AVCHD...whathaveyou.

BUT!!!

You need a beefy machine in order to work with the footage smoothly. Adobe craves fast processors, craves lots of RAM, really wants an NVidia graphics card with 1GB of RAM to enable CUDA for even more processing power. A 7 year old laptop isn't the best choice for this...not trying to cut native formats anyway. This is why FCP likes ProRes...easier to manage. H.264, AVCHD...those are highly complex formats that take processing power to deal with..as are others. On your older machine....The new PPRo and cutting native might not the the best idea. If I were in your boots, I'd stick to FCP and converting the media to ProRes.

The Retina MBP 15" is a sweet machine. Will be great with Premiere PRo.