FCS license question!
 

Hello,

I have just strated a small video production business with a friend of mine. We have purchased a Mac Pro each that are not on a network but will be connected at different locations to the internet.

I have looked at Final Cut Studio 2 but it appears that you can only buy a 5 seat license. Does this mean we have to buy 2 copies of FCS??

This seems a tad extreme!

Many thanks

Darren

Not to me. You had to buy two Macs ('cos you can't pirate/sorry/copy them) so you'll have to buy two copies of FCS. What did you expect?

You might find a retailer who'll give you a discount if you buy two copies at once - or if you bought two copies at the time you bought the Macs - after all it's a lot of money.

Greetings Darren,

Let me ask you this: do both of you need the entire Studio, or would your workflow suite a set-up where one has FCS and one has FCE? I don't know what your workflow looks like, so this may be the wrong way to go, but wanted to offer an alternative as food for thought.

FCE and FCS are really not compatible as workflow solutions as they cannot easily share projects. FCE is just not something you put into a multi-user pro edit house, unless that house is doing all HDV and DV work with no DVD authoring or high-end color correction. If you want to be above board you pretty much have to buy two licenses- that's how it works.

-Noah

I haven't touched FCE since v1, so I am not up to speed on FCE features... but if it imports/exports EDLs, then it is a possible workflow. Certainly not ideal, and I wouldn't want to work that way, but I'm not the one looking to avoid buy an additional license.

I read the OP as there being just two people involved and that a 5-seat license was exorbitant (and a waste of three seats) but so was -- to the OP -- buying another FCS license.

Nope- you cannot exchange EDLs with FCE plus it doesn't support many of the frame rates, resolutions and codecs FCP does. FCE is a great program- but as a junior version of FCP it's of very limited utility alongside FCP in the same edit facility. Unless you're working in DV or HDV- and even then you're missing a lot of stuff. A pro house should pony up for the pro apps for all its workstations.

Noah

Agreed!

Imagine a delivery service with 12 drivers but only one delivery van.