prores conundrum

i work regularly on a final cut 5 system which does not have prores.
i've been trying to talk folks here into upgrading for a long time and
we were going to do so when fcp8 came out. doh!

we now want to watch the development of things for some time
before committing to either a migration to x or something else. in
the meantime, though, i would still like to acquire prores capability.
i can think of a couple of ways to to so. the easiest, though, would
be to buy x and install on the existing system and then ignore it,
continuing to use the older, more familiar fcp5, but gaining prores
export capability.

now for the questions:

can i install x on a 10.5.8 system? even if i don't use it for anything
but the prores?

will i HAVE to upgrade the system to lion just to get prores in this
way? or, is there something else, like snow leopard, that is could
upgrade to that might facilitate this process?

if it's not clear, people around here don't like to upgrade. i know
that's a lot of what's painted us into this corner. what other
suggestions can be offered to get us prores capability without my
having to change the system more than folks here might be
comfortable with?

thanks,
BabaG

It won't install. You need 10.6.7 to get the App Store, which is the only way to purchase it and get the additional codecs.

You don't need Lion, but you do need Snow Leopard.

All the best,

Tom

thx