Don't suppose anyone else noticed the supposed native file format editing?

I like that new round tripping with Color. Keeps it simple.

Anyone see anything wrong, morally or otherwise, with buying Final Cut Pro 3 or 4 from ebay on the cheap, then using it to get the Final Cut Studio 3 upgrade package?

As long as its an official retail package it should work, right? New Intel machines will run the old PPC program as far as I know.

I have the FCS2 academic package, so updates are off limits for me.

Comments? Will it work?

Anyone see anything wrong, morally or otherwise, with buying Final Cut Pro 3 or 4 from ebay on the cheap, then using it to get the Final Cut Studio 3 upgrade package?

As long as its an official retail package it should work, right? New Intel machines will run the old PPC program as far as I know.

I have the FCS2 academic package, so updates are off limits for me.

Comments? Will it work?

I see that as being a financially sound plan. Go for it as long as the copy you're getting is legit.

I had to buy Motion used years ago to get FCS 1. It was a legit purchase but I never used that one. That was when you had to have all the apps to upgrade to FCS 1.

Heath

Just got shipping confirmation, mine will be here in the morning (provided there are no hiccups).

Yes, it's mostly incremental, but the upgrades to motion and the FCP updates will all make my life easier and less reliant on 3rd party plugins. When FCP goes wonky and I have to trash prefs and stop using all my add-ons and such it really slows me down. This will alleviate some of the issues.

Migrating from Vegas I gave up a ton of functionality, this regains some of it.

I still expect a far more iMovie/Vegas like evolution of FCP in less than 2 years.

I was just reading that you can burn Blu-ray discs not only out of Compressor but from FCP as well. No specifics though.

I was just reading that you can burn Blu-ray discs not only out of Compressor but from FCP as well. No specifics though.


Check out the training video (output to Blu-ray)...

Ripple Training (http://www.rippletraining.com/provideoapps.html)

As a new user, I'm just starting the FCS long learning curve of knowledge. Just learning rip/roll, slip/slide tools (hehehe, do you remember your first time?).

I've paid 1200 € few weeks ago the complete suite & this new actualization cost around 300 (I want to die!).

As I have not to enjoy properly the new features as my newbie eye and poor workflow in practice could profit, may ask you guys:

Make sense await to Snow Leopard and a possible complete upgrade (not actualization, maybe 64, full Intel, etc...) properly & save money?

there's usually a 14 money back option if you bought direct from Apple ... if you're within that period then go for the refund, and buy the new FCS 2009 instead ... if not then I would recommend waiting as there is already so much for you to learn in FCS2.

best
Andy

Not in the 14 days period. Just 1 month & half ago.

I think to continue with my practices & forget upgrades till Snow (if so).

If new suite costs 999, I paid 1200 & the actualization is about 300, I have enough hitting the roof with these around 500 € difference.

Ouch!

Anyone see anything wrong, morally or otherwise, with buying Final Cut Pro 3 or 4 from ebay on the cheap, then using it to get the Final Cut Studio 3 upgrade package?

As long as its an official retail package it should work, right? New Intel machines will run the old PPC program as far as I know.

I have the FCS2 academic package, so updates are off limits for me.

Comments? Will it work?

I did this. I bought FC 3 5 months ago intending to upgrade. I have been waiting for the update, it´s here now AND they dropped the upgrade price from FC3 to about half of what it was. I´m happy

I did this. I bought FC 3 5 months ago intending to upgrade. I have been waiting for the update, it´s here now AND they dropped the upgrade price from FC3 to about half of what it was. I´m happy

Just purchased mine this morning.
I'm going to wait a little bit before I do an install, to hear about the bugs that are out there.
And unfortunately you know their will be bugs.

It's a shame that you are not able to have multiple versions of FCS on your system, like I can Sony Vegas (I can have Vegas 3,4,5,6,7,8 what ever) on the PC.

This would be less painful for me, as I would be able to try out FCS3, while still working in FCS2. Then if the new version seems stable enough, I could simply uninstall the old version.

BTW, how does one handle installing the upgrade, as I haven't done this before. Do you have to do a full uninstall of FCS2 before installing the new version. Or will the new version simply install and overwrite over the old version?

Having multiple versions of an NLE on your system probably isn't the best thing--I had Premiere Pro CS4 sitting on my system with FCP and I noticed a lot of issues, even when one of them wasn't launched. I uninstalled PP CS4 and things are better.

Heath

Just purchased mine this morning.
I'm going to wait a little bit before I do an install, to hear about the bugs that are out there.
And unfortunately you know their will be bugs.

It's a shame that you are not able to have multiple versions of FCS on your system, like I can Sony Vegas (I can have Vegas 3,4,5,6,7,8 what ever) on the PC.

This would be less painful for me, as I would be able to try out FCS3, while still working in FCS2. Then if the new version seems stable enough, I could simply uninstall the old version.

BTW, how does one handle installing the upgrade, as I haven't done this before. Do you have to do a full uninstall of FCS2 before installing the new version. Or will the new version simply install and overwrite over the old version?

All you need is another disc.

Just put a new disc in one of your MacPro slots or use a FW external. I think that still works.

I have 3 different system discs on my MacPro. I always have a backup ready that way and I can try new SW with no risk.

The specs say to run Color you need a "Display with 1680-by-1050 resolution or higher" which would mean that I can't run it on my MacBook Pro 15" which really sucks...

I'm still running Tiger so I think I'll wait for Snow Leopard's release and upgrade everything at once.

Affordable displays plus Display Maestro (Display Maestro — Unlock All Resolutions (http://www.koingosw.com/products/displaymaestro.php)) and/or Matrox's DualHead2Go (Matrox Graphics - Products - Graphics eXpansion Module - DualHead2Go (http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/dh2go/)) and their MXO 2 (Complete HD/SD I/O for the Mac - Matrox MXO2 (http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo2/)) is PERFECT for laptop FCP editors!

Heath

Cheers Heath, I'll look into that when I get around to upgrading.

No problem, Aaron. Let us know how it goes.

Heath

Has anyone actually seen a retail box of FCS3? I am interested to know what is in the box. The Apple web site says
DVDs with Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5, DVD Studio Pro 4, Cinema Tools 4.5, and Apple Qmaster 3.5
Content DVDs
Printed and electronic documentation
I have ordered the Upgrade & tracking the package on the UPS site it tells me that the weight is 0.6kg or about 1lb 5oz The FCS2 kit weighs considerably more than that as it contains several excellent manuals. Does the FCS3 upgrade short-change us on the manuals or did Apple decide to drop the printed manuals & only deliver them in electronic form? This would be a retrograde step.

Has anyone actually seen a retail box of FCS3? I am interested to know what is in the box. The Apple web site says
DVDs with Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5, DVD Studio Pro 4, Cinema Tools 4.5, and Apple Qmaster 3.5
Content DVDs
Printed and electronic documentation
I have ordered the Upgrade & tracking the package on the UPS site it tells me that the weight is 0.6kg or about 1lb 5oz The FCS2 kit weighs considerably more than that as it contains several excellent manuals. Does the FCS3 upgrade short-change us on the manuals or did Apple decide to drop the printed manuals & only deliver them in electronic form? This would be a retrograde step.

Nigel - Mine came in a small box (like the size of 4 compact disc cases). There is a partition with 1 package contain the license, the FCP 7 Booklet (truncated) and the legal documents. The other partition contains the DVD's. The documentation is indeed electronic and Apple must have saved a bundle on creating these books- It's greener but I do miss them.

-C

I remember they did that with later copies of FCP 1 (no books) and there was a lot of uproar and they brought it back.

heath

Has anyone actually seen a retail box of FCS3?

Personally, firsthand? No. But did see this the other day referenced in a TUAW article:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2009/07/fcs-shrink.jpg

A very convincing photograph showing the significant reduction in size for both FCS and Logic Studio; the new versions are standing next to the older for ease of visual comparison. The difference is rather striking to behold, from the looks of it.

And I thought the FCS 2 box was smaller than the first one.

Heath

I wonder if there's a difference with the upgrade vs full version with regard to hardcopy manuals?

Boyd,

Maybe not--I'm guessing Apple wants to save money on printing manuals and packaging. They're probably also depending on Diane Weyland's and others' books to help out.

Heath

No hardcopy manuals period, as far as I can tell.
Also no PDF I believe, just a Apple Help Viewer version ... and the online docs of course:
Final Cut Pro 7 User Manual (http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/)

Do you have to do a full uninstall of FCS2 before installing the new version. Or will the new version simply install and overwrite over the old version?

It overwrites, but you should deinstall FCS before doing a new full install. Otherwise, you may have some problems with Apple Qmaster & Compressor ("Qmaster's file not found" when launching a compression through Qmaster). That's what happened to me and to a lot of guys (Have a look on Google).

Wow, I see the academic version is priced at $899.00. FCS2 academic was priced at $549.00. Seems silly to pay $899.00 and not get any upgrades. Not sure about their new pricing model.

Project based scratch disks. C'mon, Apple!

Absolutely. This would save so much time in my workflow when starting to work on projects. I spend too much time forgetting to reset my scratch, then having to re-render once I've figured it out and work at getting rid of unwanted renders in other projects... PITA! And if I import anything during that time...eeks!

Project based scratch disks. C'mon, Apple!

Agreed.

But a while back, I considered getting an Apple accreditation. It turns out that our standard way of working - ensuring the scratch disk is assigned per project - was not just a no-no, it was cause to not award an 'Apple Certified' whatnot. Thus, the certification didn't seem worth bothering with.

The Apple team were adamant about this. So I wonder if this will ever be fixed.

Nigel - Mine came in a small box (like the size of 4 compact disc cases). There is a partition with 1 package contain the license, the FCP 7 Booklet (truncated) and the legal documents. The other partition contains the DVD's. The documentation is indeed electronic and Apple must have saved a bundle on creating these books- It's greener but I do miss them.

-C

That's exactly what I got from the Apple retail store this afternoon. You have to ask them for the upgrade version. Inside the sleeve is a very nice sturdy cardboard box, and the discs and docs inside that are in those fold out cardboard boxes they've been using for the last couple of years. The manual is electronic, and there's a brief introductory manual for FCP (doesn't touch on any of the other apps.

Does that mean full versions have the manuals?

heath

Agreed.

But a while back, I considered getting an Apple accreditation. It turns out that our standard way of working - ensuring the scratch disk is assigned per project - was not just a no-no, it was cause to not award an 'Apple Certified' whatnot. Thus, the certification didn't seem worth bothering with.

The Apple team were adamant about this. So I wonder if this will ever be fixed.

Have they ever worked with multiple projects at the same time? and tons of removveable hardware for backup? Illogical!

The specs say to run Color you need a "Display with 1680-by-1050 resolution or higher" which would mean that I can't run it on my MacBook Pro 15" which really sucks...

I'm still running Tiger so I think I'll wait for Snow Leopard's release and upgrade everything at once.
That spec for Color is if you only have one screen. If you have a second display to connect to use with the scopes and preview then it should work for you just fine.

Is LiveType still included in FCS3?

It overwrites, but you should deinstall FCS before doing a new full install. Otherwise, you may have some problems with Apple Qmaster & Compressor ("Qmaster's file not found" when launching a compression through Qmaster). That's what happened to me and to a lot of guys (Have a look on Google).

Ronan, thanks for the info.
I was planning to uninstall FCS2 using FCS Remover.
One question on installing the FCS3 upgrade...

Does the upgrade come with a new serial number or do I simply use the serial number that came with FCS2?

I only ask because with some software such as Adobe Suite, the upgrade installer looks for a previous install of the Adobe software.

If FCS3 looks for a previous install of FCS2, and it's been removed from my system before I install FCS3 then there could be install issues. Just checking...

Thanks again for the insight.

In the distant pass, you would keep the previous version on your system and the discs would just upgrade it. For the last few years, the upgrade is actually a full version of the software, and you should just uninstall the old version of Final Cut Studio.

Heath

Hmmm...

Still no firewire support for Color.

Still no funds available to provide accurate display of color grading.

Still completely winging my color correction.

Still can't figure out why Apple won't add this simple feature for those of us who aren't made of money/shooting exclusively in HD.

Pass.

Christopher,

I recommend one of the MXO boxes:

Scan Converter - Output and Monitoring Device - Matrox MXO (http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo/)

It works with Color 1.0 just fine. However, check this out:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1151

Heath

Still no firewire support for Color.

Still can't figure out why Apple won't add this simple feature for those of us who aren't made of money/shooting exclusively in HD.


Do you think there's a chance that it's not technically fast enough/feasible? Color taxes systems enough without having to maintain a proper MPEG2 transport stream out the FW port.

Im pretty disapointed with the release, If it was released last year I can see it being a half hearted release but its been like 2 years and with all the progress Adobes making I was looking for something more earth shattering. It looks like a transistional release im pretty sure they will kill DVDSP in the next release like they did Livetype this time. I think they know its not that big thats why its so cheap, I wish I could try it before I upgrade with the apple smoke and mirrors in one line it looks like they added some stuff in another it doesnt ie native AVCHD editing. I wish they would release these 100 new features in a easy to see page instead of putting into a doc with the existing features.

Do you think there's a chance that it's not technically fast enough/feasible? Color taxes systems enough without having to maintain a proper MPEG2 transport stream out the FW port.

I have the MXO2 and it works great with Color 1.4. Now there's the MXO2 mini for around $600. For about $2K you could have a real progressive 1 to 1 pixel Plasma that can be color "calibrated" for color correction.

It works great. I realize this has noting to do with the latest release of FCS but I wouldn't use the fact that you can't push video down firewire from color stop you from upgrading.

Its not clear to me, now that we can "Send to" Compressor from FCP7 does that mean that I can use Qmaster and render a FCP7 project over multiple CPU's? There's a bit of confusion about this. At least I'm confused...

Does the upgrade come with a new serial number or do I simply use the serial number that came with FCS2?
I only ask because with some software such as Adobe Suite, the upgrade installer looks for a previous install of the Adobe software.
If FCS3 looks for a previous install of FCS2, and it's been removed from my system before I install FCS3 then there could be install issues. Just checking...


FCS3 comes with a new serial number. But if you deinstall FCS2 before installing FCS3, FCS3 will ask you also your original FCS serial number.

If I upgrade can I still open my final cut 6 projects in the new final cut?

It looks like a transistional release im pretty sure they will kill DVDSP in the next release like they did Livetype this time.

Is Livetype no longer in the suite?

Is Livetype no longer in the suite?

Nope, and we shouldn't be surprised as the writing was on the wall for some time that we should look to Motion to do what LiveType did.

Hence the interesting non-update to DVD Studio Pro.

But then I wonder if the move from 7.0 to 7.1 will be a biggie, the one that would be Snow Leopard only and may require surrendering of install disks like the 5.0 to 5.1 did.

Having said that, I'm STILL waiting for the install disks, so can't contemplate/comment on just how Compressor could begin to do what DVDSP does.

I could believe DVDSP's non BR could be down to legal wrangles about licenses (i.e. Apple doesn't like the financial/legal deal to 'author' proper BR disks and doesn't want to ship a distinctly 'amateur' way of doing BD-R disks only). I really don't want to believe that DVDSP can't do BD.

So maybe the DVDSP update to BluRay is waiting in the wings for a breakthrough on legally allowing BD authoring for the masses without the possibility of copying BD restricted content.


Oh, and as for 'waiting two years for such a minor update' - again, I'm hoping on this being the 'last' iteration of FCP for systems pre-Snow Leopard. It's already cut out all the PPC owners, so here's Apple throwing the rest of us a bone before clamping down on everyone to get us to SL and the latest and greatest.

If I upgrade can I still open my final cut 6 projects in the new final cut?
Absolutely! You just can't open an FCP 7 project in an older version of FCP, given the history.

Heath

FCS3 comes with a new serial number. But if you deinstall FCS2 before installing FCS3, FCS3 will ask you also your original FCS serial number.
So I should install the upgrade first, then I should be able to uninstall FCS2?

If so, would I ab able to use FCS Remover and remove FCS2 only? I was wondering if this might effect some functions of FCS3. If so, then I would rather remove FCS2 first before install. I don't care about having to input the original FCS2 serial number as well as the new one. Just a little extra work required on my end.

Once running on FCS3, I don't see the need to have 2 instances of FCS taking up valuable hard drive space, especially on a laptop.

So I should install the upgrade first, then I should be able to uninstall FCS2?

The canonical method is to note your serial numbers, current and past, back up your system, copy out your plug-ins, presets, custom settings and so on, then thoroughly uninstall Final Cut Studio with assistance from an app such as FCP Uninstaller:

FCS Remover - Uninstall Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Compressor, Soundtrack Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro, LiveType, Cinema Tools (http://www.digitalrebellion.com/fcs_remover.htm)

Then do a full install again, with a repair permissions just for good measure.

Which kinda redefines 'canonical' I know, but through the pain and botheration of previous experience, that's how most of us do it.

Cheating it last time lead to problems with Compressor not running properly, or DVD Studio Pro popping up mysterious helper apps (benign but freaks out many people), or Cinema Tools crashing, or SoundTrack Pro being unstable - though there's a school of thought that says STP is by its very nature unstable.

So it's like upgrading a swimming pool rather than a car: dig the old one out first.

If you need to have two systems for whatever reason, consider building a boot drive and have the new version on there to 'play with'. When you feel happy, then go through above to 'switch'

I don't care about having to input the original FCS2 serial number as well as the new one. Just a little extra work required on my end.

IIRC, I have to put in several Serial Numbers, as I started out with 1.x and most serial numbers are 'Upgrade' Serials, so the installer asks me to go further and further back in time until I get to the original. Just part of the joy of upgrading I guess.