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Can’t open old FCP libraries.
I have hundreds of old FCP libraries with the media imported in to them on dozens of hard drives. However when I try to open them on the latest version of FCP it refuses to open them.
According to Apple Support they are too old to open in this version and nothing can be done to save them.
Any body got any ideas it’s hundreds of TB’s of rare footage and it’s now all gone it would seem. -
3 Replies
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Hey Brett,
How old is “old”, as if it is FCPX, if you can find someone with the version that matches, you should be able to install it – in theory. And then open the libraries. There are smarter people around than me, who might be better help, or even have the setup to do it for you.
If you are not too worried about the project data, but just need to rescue the footage.
Using the Apple OS Finder, you may be able to crack open the library, and copy the video files across to a seperate folder outside of the FCP library.Hope that this helps.
Atb
Mads -
Checkout 7toX. It may help.
provideocoalition.com
Testing the 7toX Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X conversion by Scott Simmons - ProVideo Coalition
When Apple released the latest Final Cut Pro X update there was a very important 3rd party utility released right alongside the 10.0.3 update that finally allowed the importing of legacy FCP7 projects into FCPX. It wasn't entirely surprising that … Continue reading
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From the last modified date of these libraries you could guess the version of FCP X that these were saved to. Versions of FCP X by date released, are listed in the Wikipedia page for ‘Final Cut Pro’. Scroll to the bottom to see the table with versions and release dates.
For eg. if the Library was last modified in 2016, then its likely to be FCP X 10.3 or earlier.
To get FCP 10.3 you’ll have to find an old Mac with MacOS 10.12 installed. In that Mac, you can login with your App Store credentials and in the App Store go to ‘Purchased’ to find your purchase of FCP X. In that system, since its still on MacOS 10.12, the App Store should offer you FCP x 10.3 of 10.4 for download.
If this works and you get FCP X 10.4, the you should be able to open a 10.4 or earlier Library. It may ask to update in case the Library is even older.
But you may not even need to go so far back. You could can start with the previous version of FCP X, that is FCP X 10.7 or 10.6 which will be available on an older Mac Intel system. 10.7 or 10.6 may be able to open many older 10.x version libraries. So, you may need to open and upgrade these libraries in successively newer FCP versions and upgrade them in stages till 10.6 or 10.7. Once you reach there, then the latest FCP should be able to upgrade them.
This looks to be a long and tedious run.
Neil Sadwelkar
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