Fall is a confusing time for video professionals – especially those tied to Apple hardware. Cupertino maintains an aggressive development posture for their Mac operating system, therefore a significant new version drops around this time each year. Likewise, Adobe MAX hits now, which is usually when the newest application updates shift from beta into release products. I’m usually cautious and wait six months or more before updating macOS, but this year I’ve thrown caution to the wind.
First, the “why”
I’m looking into Brushed Pixel’s MuseBox, which is a Mac-based alternative to Adobe Lightroom. It’s inspired by Apple’s defunct Aperture software. Their system specs require Sonoma (macOS 14.x) or later, but all of my machines have been on Ventura (macOS 13.x). Since I missed the Sonoma update window (yes, I know I can still find downloads), I decided to take the plunge straight to Sequoia (macOS 15.x).
As the senior editor for a production company with in-house post, I manage five 2017 iMac Pros, along with my 2020 iMac and M1 MacBook Pro at home – basically six workstations involved in production, plus the laptop. I like to keep all of the systems at the same level of compatibility with apps and plugins, so if I’m going to update one, I’ll update all. Of course, I’m still cautious, so I updated one or two first – checked what worked and what didn’t – and then updated the rest.
Tread lightly
Every time Apple releases a newer version of macOS, older models and older technologies are deprecated and removed from the qualified list. In the past this has meant no more support for 32-bit systems. This time support for certain GPUs and CPUs has been dropped. I questioned the developer at Brushed Pixel why they were not supporting Ventura, since this meant cutting out a large number of potential customers. He responded that by dropping support for older, slower hardware, there’s a huge increase in minimum performance for the application. They could have supported the previous OS, but as a small development team, they had to balance development efforts against features and potential client base. In short, any time Apple drops some hardware support, the developer has to make up the difference. At that point, is it worth it?
In our shop, the workstations are all connected to two shared storage NAS systems (LumaForge and QNAP). Each iMac Pro is connected via a Sonnet Twin 10G dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet/Thunderbolt 3 adapter. Several of the workstations use a Focusrite Scarlett or Mackie Onyx audio interface connected via USB. The main color correction workstation adds a Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Express for video output (more in that in a moment). We are also a hybrid operation using Jump Desktop for remote access from home. The important concerns, whenever the operating system is updated, is that none of these devices become doorstops and that no functionality is lost. When you are talking about an iMac Pro that’s going on seven years in the wild, you tend to keep your fingers crossed.
The good news
Fortunately, all of the systems survived the updates. With a large OS update, you also have to go update all of the pertinent applications – for instance, everything from the Apple App Store (Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Motion, DaVinci Resolve Studio, etc) along with the various plugin packages, like FxFactory. Once you’ve done that, it’s important to go through every tab of your Mac’s system settings and make sure these are set properly. Apple adds a lot of consumer-style functions that you’ll want to turn off on an editing workstation. Then do this for every workstation, so that everything is consistent.
The biggest pucker factor for our shop was whether any issues cropped up with the Sonnet boxes or the NAS system. I’m happy to say that they were fine. Jump worked as well. But then…
The bad news, round one
Checking through the various systems, I found that the UltraStudio didn’t show up (No Device Found), even after updating the drivers via Blackmagic Design’s Desktop Video software. This is supposed to be good for Sonoma onward, but no luck, even using Apple’s suggested Terminal “hack” (more to come on that).
This bring us to another issue. The UltraStudio Express is a Thunderbolt 2 device and was connected to the iMac Pro’s USB-C port using an Apple adapter. Even though it was fine under Ventura, it was no longer working after the update. That’s in spite of the driver update and the fact that power was passing to the unit over the Thunderbolt connection.
The ultimate solution was to purchase a new Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Mini HD, which worked. It connects natively to the USB-C port and with the latest driver works fine in DaVinci Resolve. However, when I checked it in another application, like Final Cut Pro, even the new unit could not be found.
This bring us to what I call a Terminal “hack.” One of the privacy features Apple introduced with Sonoma and has continued in Sequoia is a camera indicator icon on the top menu bar. Any time you connect and use an external camera or video i/o device, an indicator icon is supposed to turn on to warn you. Whether or not this icon turns on is based on the coding of the device drivers. If that bit of code isn’t there, macOS prevents its use. Apple has publicized a support page explaining how to enable and disable this feature through the Terminal from the Recovery mode. Once I disabled this feature, then the UltraStudio worked in both Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro, along with Resolve. It seems that Blackmagic could easily fix this, but hasn’t thus far.
The bad news, round two
Given the issues with the older Thunderbolt 2 UltraStudio, I was concerned whether or not other Thunderbolt 2 devices would even work anymore. After all, Thunderbolt 2 was originally championed by Apple, but they’ve since moved on. We have a few Thunderbolt 2 drives, including a Promise Technology Pegasus2 R8 with 32TB of raw storage. Since we have two NAS systems, it’s rarely used. But, it did see action during the Covid “work-from-home” days. Plus, clients occasionally bring in Thunderbolt 2 RAIDs. Uh, oh. Were these now kaput?
The answer is complicated. Thunderbolt 2 drives that just plug in (via the adapter) without the need for any special drivers or software continue to work. G-Drives, LaCies, and others would be examples. However, if you have a RAID system (even RAID-0) that requires software, drivers, etc, then it’s up to the developer whether or not they want to continue to support it. In our case, a simple driver update from Promise did not work. Once I installed their full software bundle, then the Pegasus2 mounted and worked on the iMac Pro.
On the other hand, one of our editors tested this on his M1 MacBook Pro to no avail. Apparently, this version of the Promise software still supports Intel Macs, but it’s not worth the development time to write software to make these legacy products work with the Apple Silicon architecture. However, Promise’s newer systems are being advertised as ready for Sequoia, which presumably also means Apple Silicon Macs. I haven’t tested that. In any case, the same editor had a similar issue at home with this OWC RAID and SoftRAID, but was able to fix that with an update.
Another friend has a G-Tech Thunderbolt 2 RAID – now under the Western Digital umbrella. The support tech informed him that an update might not be recommended, because of some known issues, although Intel machines might actually be fine. The bottom line is that they’ve tested M-series Macs, but not Intels. It’s probably not a high priority to test Intel Macs and Thunderbolt 2 RAID units, because both are legacy devices.
Whether or not a legacy device – especially one based on older technologies, like Thunderbolt 2 – will continue to work after an update to the operating system will depend on the developer. Do they have the resources and interest in writing the code to make up for changes in the operating system? And, of course, this is complicated by the fact that they have to do this for two different Apple hardware architectures – Intel and Apple Silicon. Therefore, some will continue to work and others won’t.
Adobe 2025
The last part of the equation is Adobe’s latest application releases. Adobe has been previewing many of these changes in beta form over the past months. Although the 2025 versions dropped this week, they still don’t include all of the features being touted, which are still in beta. I do not run beta software on a production workstation. I need to be sure that all workstations are running the same app versions and same plugins. This includes my iMac at home. As with the operating system update and application updates, you need to make sure the new Adobe versions work properly. Adobe does let you keep older versions on your system, but I usually go clean and only run the latest version.
After installing the applications, you want to clean up the Mac’s Dock, removing the older icons and adding back the new ones. Launch every Adobe application and check the preferences, delete the cache files, clean the cache database, rescan your plugins, and get familiar with the changes. So far, everything is working, with the exception of Film Impact’s Essential Transition Pack Lite. This is a free bundle offered through Adobe’s marketplace. Film Impact has typically been slow in getting an updated installer to Creative Cloud. As of this writing, those plugins are not compatible and won’t work in any existing or new Premiere Pro projects. I suspect that will get fixed in a couple of weeks.
Here are some items in Premiere Pro that haven’t been implemented yet. The release version has no generative extended video, clips still have square corners, and the color management is only partial. For example, source side color settings include a ton of new LUTs and camera color spaces, however the Lumetri panel for sequence clips doesn’t. It still has the limited set of LUTs from the previous version.
As an aside for Final Cut Pro users, many third-party audio plugins do not work, because the app won’t validate them. The list of plugins you can’t use in FCP grows with each update. That’s in spite of the fact that these same plugins work in all other NLEs and DAWs on the same computer, including Apple’s Logic Pro. Go figure!
Conclusion
As they say, “Your mileage may vary.” Overall, these updates have gone reasonably well, with only the need to drop $545 on a new UltraStudio Mini HD. It could be worse, I suppose. I’m happy that these older machines have continued to be viable, although that might not be the case this time next year. After all, these are the oldest Macs still on the current qualified list for Sequoia. Developer efforts will go towards the newest machines (M1 and M2 Macs) and newer technologies like Thunderbolt 3 and 4. So take it easy and do your research whenever you contemplate updating hardware and software.