Two Older iMacs as External Monitors, ONE for Display FCPX

Question

Two Older iMacs as External Monitors, ONE for Display FCPX

Hi there. So, I have a 2019 MacBook Pro as my main computer, running FCPX.

I have two older iMacs that are 27 inches, to work as thunderbolt connected external monitors.

I want to display the viewer (so I can watch when I edit) to one of the iMacs as a quasi AV out. Of course, it does not show up as a selection choice in FCPX preferences.

Whenever I try to use the window as a display to view, it forces me to use the Macbook as the viewer, or will force me to use the edit suite there. In other words, I cannot seem to use one of the imacs as a dedicated viewer at all, and then edit on the other imac screen while leaving the Macbook pro screen alone by itself. It's too small compared to the imacs, so I just put things on it that I want out of the way.

THoughts?

Posted on Oct 25, 2020 11:34 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Luis Sequeira1

Level 9

67,480 points

Oct 25, 2020 12:54 PM in response to colorfulstudio

It is easy to make it work, if you know how. I can help, since I have been telling people how to do this for quite a while.

First, let's establish some terminology.

You have three screens: MBP, iMac1, iMac2.

I will assume that you want the main FCP interface in iMac1, and the viewer in iMac2.

Here is how:

1) Open System Preferences->Displays->Arrangement

Drag the little representation of the menu bar to the representation of iMac2.

2) Start FCP on iMac1.

One simple way to do it is to first click the actual menu bar in iMac1 to make it the "active" display (see how its menu bar looks different from the other two displays), then start FCP using Spotlight: command-space, type Fina, press enter.

3) In FCP, choose Window->Show in Secondary Display->Viewers

Done

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Answer 2

Oct 25, 2020 1:21 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Worked great. MacBook on left, older iMac in middle, and another older iMac on right side. Start them all up, connect two iMacs to MBP, and hit Command-F2 on both iMac keyboards individually, and the screens will toggle right over and work as external displays. Then followed setup Lous suggested for this config. GREAT way to use these iMacs, which I also have running basic stuff in the background and I can toggle right back over anytime I like to use them individually. Very happy with this. May add a fourth screen!

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Answer 3

Oct 25, 2020 1:03 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

Tom Wolsky wrote:

Wow. Can you really do that with a built-in computer screen? How do you get it to turn on but not boot into the system?

Maybe I was not clear in the way I wrote.

The OP is running macOS on his MBP, so of course this is the mac that has to boot the OS and run FCP.

The two older iMacs are in "Target Display Mode", something that was possible for some years but not anymore: these two iMacs actually start up and each running their own OS (probably High Sierra) and then Command-F2 turns on TDM.

When I wrote "start FCP on iMac1", what I meant is that the FCP interface would be on the iMac1 SCREEN (in TDM), FCP is always running in the MBP, but displaying in two of the three existing displays.

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