Safe To Use Snow Leopard With FCS3 Yet?

Snow Leopard has been available for a while now, but I've held off installing it because of the many horror stories I've heard and read about problems running Final Cut Studio and other third party apps with it. I've recently upgraded to Final Cut Studio 3, but before I buy Snow Leopard, I wanted to get a sense of whether or not the major issues have been resolved. Is it safe to go ahead and
upgrade my MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard yet?

I wouldn't (I haven't yet). There is an issue with the express34 card slot and not all plug-ins are ready for Snow Leopard. I am waiting for the FCS / Adobe CS4 software (CS5 will be 64-Bit) to catch up.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I'm running it fine here. But not using any of the stuff Joe listed. I'm on CS3. Haven't had any problems to speak of yet.

Yeah depends what you have in mind- I'm running it with RED footage with no issues. But say if I wanted to transfer P2 footage with a duel adapter- that would be a heck no to upgrading. And truth be told there's little new in SL that affects FCP from a general user's POV. In other words you're not missing anything big...

Noah

Final Cut Studio Training, featuring the HVX200, EX1, EX3, DVX100, DVDSP and Color at [www.callboxlive.com]!
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Joey, I think the ExpressCard 34 issues have been ironed out at least on the Sony driver side. I'm running Snow Leopard and FCP 7.0.1 and cutting my Sony EX1 footage with it.

FCP 7.0.3, PPro CS5.5, MPro Octo 2.8, 16 gigs RAM, Matrox MXO2, Sony EX1

You may want to browse through this:

[snowleopard.wikidot.com]

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I have been having serious problems with transitioning my Harpertown 8 core to Snow Leopard.

Reinstalled everything 4 times now. All drives have developed access permissions problems requiring typing in the password just to copy a file into them. Admin account seems to get really screwy.

Last Friday, with two firewire drives attached, the computer locked access to all the drives, including the FW and system drives, with an access type called "special". No way to unlock them from the finder. Since the system drive was locked, restarting the computer resulted in a computer that would not boot.

Called in a tech guy who had some unix scripts that unlocked everything with a little work.
Nothing lost on the FW drives fortunately.

Also, as Joey said, many plugins are unready for it.

In my case drivers have caused issues, such as Epson printer drivers.

There is a lot of software on this computer and it's probable that I am installing something
that is dicey in Snow Leopard and just don't know which one it is.

Also, some hardware may not ever get drivers for Snow Leopard.
Which is the situation I am in with my AJA IO, the original big box version.

I found a document indicating AJA would not be updating the driver for that device
past Leopard. I emailed them and sure enough, for anyone going to Snow Leopard it's
been bricked.

I still do a lot of standard def with a little file delivered HD thrown in, so the IO has been fine.

I guess I will move on to something with HD now, not sure which product.

Almost wish I had waited to upgrade to SL, but some of the graphics software I have likes
SL for it's improved 64 bit capability.

If you have a simple setup with just the edit software on it then it's probably safe to go for it.
But if you use the computer for a lot more than that be prepared for some late nights.

Thanks for that list Joey!

NP, Sprocketz What software are you talking about likes SL? CS4 / FCS aren't 64-Bit yet. THAT'S what I am waiting for...CS5 (64-Bit).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Getting ready for CS5 as you mention but currently Lightwave has an open beta version available and that is what I use for some light 3D work.

Syntheyes is 64 bit as well.

I don't have much software on this rig yet since it's my home setup and I just changed it over recently, so I'm only adding stuff as I need it. Here's a list of addon software installed that is all working fine on SL 10.6.2 on a 2 x 3GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon.

Adobe CS Extended
Cyberduck
DivX codecs ad player
FCP suite
Flip4Mac
iShowU
MPEG streamclip
Stomp (although not used it yet)
Wow (yes, I know, I know)
Xvid pref app
Wacom stuff

Thats about it. No prefs issues, no FCS issues to date.

I found a document indicating AJA would not be updating the driver for that device
past Leopard. I emailed them and sure enough, for anyone going to Snow Leopard it's
been bricked.


Actually the AJA dev team have been working pretty hard on this despite the earlier statements, and they finally released Snow Leopard and FCP 7 compatible drivers for their "classic" Io line just a few days ago:

[www.aja.com]

Quote

"New Version 3.1 software is available today as a free download via [www.aja.com] for all Io, IoLA and IoLD customers."

Thanks for that link Andy.

I got this on the 21st of January from AJA:

"Unfortunately there are no Snow Leopard capable drivers for the SD Io products and none coming as far as I know. Sorry I don't have better news."

Then I recieved an email from Jon Thorn at AJA regarding the issue.
He went on a some length explaining the history of the IO starting in 2003 through various
versions of Final Cut and that the product had gone through a long life.

He didn't slam the door on possible SL support, but it sure sounded like a eulogy.

So your message is a definitely a pleasant surprise.