The book assumes a working level of familiarity with the Mac OS X operating system and Final Cut Pro. It was written for Final Cut Pro 5 and Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), but notes are included throughout referencing earlier versions of the software and the OS. Basic system requirements for Final Cut Pro 5 are:
Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G4 (500 MHz or faster) or G5 processor; HD features require 1 GHz or faster single or dual processors
1 GB of RAM (2 GB recommended for HD)
AGP Quartz Extreme graphics card
Mac OS X v10.3.9 or Mac OS X v10.4 (or later)
QuickTime 7.0 or later
1 GB of disk space
DVD-ROM drive