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Tips for Success: How to Keep Running Final Cut Pro 7

Danny Greer
Published: Last Updated:

Are you holding off making the switch from Final Cut Pro 7 to another video editing app? Heed this advice to keep things running as smoothly as possible.

It’s been a few years since Apple made the (now infamous) announcement of Final Cut Pro X as an upgrade/replacement to their popular FCP video editing app. Although Apple has made significant improvements to FCPX since that time, some pro editors are still holding their ground – resistant to switching from their trusty Final Cut Pro 7. Or, perhaps they’ve already made the switch to Premiere or Avid, but still have to pop open FCP 7 to make updates to previous projects.

With FCP 7 now unsupported, it will become more and more problematic to use the app into the future. So what to do?

Our friend Chris at ScreenLight shares 8 tips he picked up on a recent Reddit discussion on avoiding crashes with FCP 7. Here’s the rundown:

  1. Keep projects small – under 100mb is recommended.
  2. Don’t bring any big images into your project – over 2k images create problems.
  3. Keep your OS at 10.6.8. This may mean you have to keep a spare computer around to run it.
  4. Keep all your footage as ProRes. The time it takes to transcode can save headaches in re: crashes.
  5. The read/write speed of the network must be fast enough to support your footage bit rate.
  6. For third party I/O solutions (like AJA) make sure all firmware and drives are updated.
  7. Turn off high quality scrub in your FCP sequence.
  8. Make sure you do not have Perian installed on your machine. Perian is known to cause stuttering and distorted playback in FCP.

If you’re wondering about FCP7 compatibility with Mountain Lion, see our earlier post here.

Have you already made the switch from FCP 7? If so, to what app?
Still running FCP7 and have future-proofing tips to share?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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