Switch from FCS2 to FCPX (Media Manager)

Question

Switch from FCS2 to FCPX (Media Manager)

I've completed a major project in Final Cut Studio 2, and have media managed it to an external drive (for the Colorist). The movie is fully completed now and has been sent to film festivals. The Colorist however has to hold onto the drive with the project on it as he's creating my BluRay discs whenever I need a new batch. I also happen to be selling my Mac Pro to upgrade to a new Mac, but I know I will need to return to this project in about a month and a half to cut a festival version of the trailer. At this point, I will have all brand new equipment/software including (I'm guessing) the new FCPX.

My question is when I have this new machine, and FCPX, and retrieve my drive from the Colorist to work on a new trailer, does anyone foresee a problem opening a Media Managed project made in FCS2, in FCPX? I know not many details are known about the new version, but has anyone had any experience going from FCP 6 to 7, or any other similar scenarios? I'm not sure if I will have the opportunity to quickly made the new version before I sell the computer, that's the dilemma.

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Another quick question regarding my switch if anyone cares to help me with both problems... If I uninstall FCS2 from my current computer, can I install it on my new desktop? I know the license is good for 1 desktop, and 1 laptop. Will it recognize that I've uninstalled it from my original desktop? Or is that it. Once you've done it on one desktop it's game over.

Thanks for any help!

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Final Cut, Color

Posted on Jun 18, 2011 2:53 PM

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Answer 1

Goldfish

Level 2

364 points

Jun 18, 2011 3:25 PM in response to Thirsty Robot

Your FCS2 will install onto a new computer just fine. Make sure you have serial #s handy and don't attempt to migrate anything. Make it a fresh start.

Media managed projects are the easiest to open because all of your media has been copied to a dedicated directory. I'd be shocked to hear that FCPX causes any sort of grief opening your project.

I upgraded to FCS2 to FCS3 without any issues. I'd recommend purchasing FCS3 so you have the latest "legacy" version in case you need to use it. Both FCS3 and FCPX will be able to live together in your applications folder.

If you're going to keep your old computer you won't be able to run FCP6 or 7 on both computers at the same time but you don't have to un-install it.

You're good to go.

best,

g

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Answer 2

Nick Holmes

Level 7

30,018 points

Jun 18, 2011 3:33 PM in response to Thirsty Robot

Apart from the fact that the folks posting here know just as much about FCP X as you do....

Consider the fact that FCP X is not an upgrade, but an entirely new application. It is possible that FCP X will not read your older FCP project files at all. Then again, maybe it will.

You can't compare reading in projects from FCP 6 to FCP 7 as they essentially have the same architecture. I can load projects from FCP 1 into FCP 7 without issues.

There is no unregister or verification procedure for current versions of FCP. Delete it from the old machine, install on the new one. Done. There might be an exception where a serial number has been recorded as stolen or faked.

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