iMovie, final cut

iMovie 7, 8, and 9 projects can be converted to iMovie 10 projects by opening iMovie 10 and clicking on Update Projects and Events. Then you can open them in iMovie 10 to edit and export. Duplicates of the projects will still remain in the earlier versions. Otherwise you would need to open these older projects through the iMovie 7, 8, or 9 apps themselves, that could be problematical since they are incompatible with the newer operating systems.

iMovie 6 (and possibly earlier versions) is a bit more of a process. Unless you have a functioning iMovie 6 app on your Mac, you would need to extract the .mov file of the project. To do that, control-click on the project's icon and click on Show Package Contents from the drop down menu. You will see a screen like this;

Click on Shared Items. Then click on iDVD. (It does not matter if you never had sent the project to iDVD.) Within the iDVD folder you will see a .mov file that is a movie of the entire edited project. However, it won't play as yet.

Control-click on the .mov file and choose Encode Selected Videos from the drop down menu. Start the encoding and wait until a new movie appears with a M4v extention. It might take a while, and during the encoding process a tempory file will appear without a m4v extension. When the encoding is complete, you will have a screen that looks like this:

Drag the converted M4v file to your desk top and open with QuickTimePlayer. The movie will contain the entire project.

Also, in the above screen shots you will see a Media folder that contains the media in the project. You can open that folder and Option-Drag (copy, not move) the media to your desktop.

As for Final Cut, I have not used that app and do not know if the above iMovie procedure works in Final Cut.

-- Rich

I have not used the old FCE or FCP since 2011 so my memory could be dodgy but you may be able to rescue the original video clips although not the final edited movie.

Right click (Control-click) the FCE file and select Show Package Contents.

If you search inside you may find the original media which you can put into the latest iMovie or FCP X.

Sorry I can't be more specific but it's been a long time!