View Full Version : 7D on an older Mac


Peter Rummel
May 20th, 2010, 09:32 AM
I recently got a 7D as a second camera on a project. I'm impressed with what I've seen, and I'm looking forward to exploring this camera and it's capabilities.

However, I have an older PowerPC Mac (dual 2.5GHz - very nice for it's day) running FCP 6. Although FCP 6 supports ProRes, the PPC Mac does not. It seems the recommended workflow for dealing with 7D footage is using ProRes - and I can't do that.

So, how do I deal with 7D files without spending $$$$ to upgrade. Money is tight, and I don't do much editing professionally so it's hard to justify the expense.

David Chapman
May 20th, 2010, 11:11 AM
Hey Peter,

I just recently purchased an i7 iMac to edit on, but I still have my quad 2.5 PPC that I have been doing ProRes on for a few years. From what I recall of the ProRes specs, you can't "live capture" transcode into ProRes. You have to convert it after you capture or when rendering the timeline. With FCP6, though, you will only have the regular and HQ versions of ProRes (not Lite or proxy). That all comes with Studio 3 (FCP7).

You should have everything installed into the Quicktime components folder for Compressor or MPEG Streamclip to transcode the h.264 into ProRes (regular).

Ryan Mast
May 20th, 2010, 11:57 AM
Hi Peter,

I have the dual 2.3 GHz G5 tower. It supports ProRes, and yours does too, if you have Studio 2 or later, which you do.

Peter Rummel
May 24th, 2010, 09:41 AM
Well.... I stand corrected. I just encoded a test clip and it worked fine. Funny how I have gone all these years thinking ProRes wouldn't work on my Mac. Many thanks to the folks who took the time to teach me otherwise.