Upgrading to Leopard?

I'm happily running FCP Studio 2 on a Mac Pro, dual-core 2.66 intel processors (I believe), with OS X 10.4.11. I purchased the system brand new a year ago, have pushed a lot of jobs through on it, with very little trouble. Almost nothing out of the ordinary in terms of bugs, problems, etc...

This week, I'm finally in a lull where I don't have a live project going, or a deadline looming. If I wanted to upgrade to Leopard, this would be the week. Now my question is -- should I?

I've done a lot of reading about how to install it, but I'm unclear of what the benefits of actually doing it would be. I love the 'time machine' function, as I'm not as meticulous as I should be about keeping my backups current. Other than that, what do I gain from Leopard?

In the next month or two, I'm probably purchasing Photoshop and/or After Effects. Before I do that, I want to make a decision to either be on Leopard, or commit to running my system on OS X for another 12-18 months until I buy a new tower. Are there any Leopard compatibility issues with those to be aware of?

If I'm problem-free with OS X, is there any reason I shouldn't wait for Snow Leopard?

Any thoughts are appreciated -

Jeff

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If I'm problem-free with OS X, is there any reason I shouldn't wait for Snow Leopard?

I love it when folks answer their own questions Not unless you NEED to throw away $129.00.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I can only image the issues thee are going to be with Snow Leopard! Quicktime X is goinf to be interesting...

I'll be installing a completely new System HDD Clone and installing Snow Leopard on that just in case!

If it aint broke don't fix it - you might find your downtime becomes extremely stressful if something goes wrong and you can't fix it before your next job!

However I use Leopard on all 3 of my Macs with no issues and I prefer Leopard to Tiger as its just so much better in general. Quick Look is one thing I could NOT do without.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

I love my Leopard on my MBP as well...Leopard kicks the tar out of "Litter Box" or whatever 10.4.11 is called - I can't believe the name escapes me right now (Panther? Cougar? Cheetah? Tabby? Russian Blue?).

Ben's right about the "scare factor" associated with a major release like Snow Leopard / Quicktime X. We won't know for quite some time after that release what the stability & functionality issues will be with our NLE / Grafix Software packages until the "guinea pigs" dive in (which will probably be Ben & I anyway )

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

We have a mixture of Tiger and Leopard machines and there are some quirky networking issues although I'm not sure which OS to attribute them too.

One disappointment is that the latest version of FxPlug only runs on Leopard.

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One disappointment is that the latest version of FxPlug only runs on Leopard.

Get used to that folks. A lot of new plug-ins that will be coming out will be Intel / Leopard or newer. After Effects CS4 will be Intel only. They're leaving those of us with PPCs out in the cold.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

And then Andreas will write us all a software port that will cure that problem.



Michael Horton
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Why do you prefer Leopard? Does better = faster? More stable? Cooler features?

I'm leaning towards upgrading because I like the time machine backup function, but beyond that, I'm still in the dark as to what else Leopard offers.

You wont see much system improvement with leopard and FCS but it's got some cool features and is stable. Like Ben says, Quick Look is very cool.

Michael Horton
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Why do you prefer Leopard? Does better = faster? More stable? Cooler features?

Yes.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Alright... the FX plug in thing just convinced me, as that's my next FCP related purchase.

Thanks for the thoughts, all, and expect some wacked-out "How do I fix this" questions come Wednesday or Thursday, ha ha ha!

Jeff

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expect some wacked-out "How do I fix this" questions come Wednesday or Thursday, ha ha ha!

Who says we have to answer them? ha ha ha yourself!

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

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Mike
And then Andreas will write us all a software port that will cure that problem.

For sure.
And I'll write a brother of FCP which will be fully compatible and will include all feature requests and bug fixes anyone in the world knows about.
Same time I'll write a QT enhancer which will fix all gamma and aperture problems.


Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

>And I'll write a brother of FCP

And name that subdivision of your company "Oranges".

And check this out! They're on Panther. I can't wait for them to get onto Leopard...

[www.knoxnews.com]



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