FCP 4.5 to FCP 5 Upgrade question

[Steve Eisen]

Retail Upgrade and Full Education price are the same. $699. So if it makes you feel any better, you don’t need to pay $1300! Retail Upgrade and Full Educational, are the same product.

G5 Dual 2.5 160GB System 400GB Media Drive ATI 9800 256MB 6 GB RAM
Dual Gig Quicksilver 1GB RAM 80 GB System drive (3) 250 GB internal media storage
15″ Al Powerbook 1.25 1GB RAM
OS 10.3.8 FCP 4.5, DVDSP 2, QT 6.5, Boris Red 3GL 1.65 TB External Stor

[Mrvideo]

Are you absolutely sure about that? There was a one time FCP 3 Academic to FCP 4 upgrade for the price of the Retail upgrade, but it was my understanding because of the issues upgrading from an OS 9 version of FCP to OSX and the latest MAC’;s inability to boot into OS 9, that sorta forced Apple into letting somethings slip a little.

It was my inpression from that point on, that any Academic software would not be capable of being upgraded again and especially to a retail version!

[Steve Eisen]

Yes. You can check the prices for both the retail store and the educational store.

G5 Dual 2.5 160GB System 400GB Media Drive ATI 9800 256MB 6 GB RAM
Dual Gig Quicksilver 1GB RAM 80 GB System drive (3) 250 GB internal media storage
15″ Al Powerbook 1.25 1GB RAM
OS 10.3.8 FCP 4.5, DVDSP 2, QT 6.5, Boris Red 3GL 1.65 TB External Stor

[Christian Masini]

The upgrade is $499 for the production suite, the production suite educational is $699. Lets say I shell out the extra $200 and just get the whole thing new again…but doesn’t that mean that every time a new version of FCP that comes out I’m paying extra for no reason?

Do you guys think that it would make more sense for me to buy the standard version one time for $1300 and from that point forward buy the upgrade for cheaper in the future for all subsequent versions of FCP and its other suite of programs? Blah it all sounds so convaluted.

How about this hypothetical: What if I bought the upgrade and tried it? Is there a line of code in the Academic versions of these programs that say “no, don’t upgrade me”?

Thanks for all the reply’s

[Rsieben]

Are you still a student/teacher/faculty or are you now in the “real world?” The Acedemic version is supposed to be used in educational environments and it’s technically against the license agreement to use it to make money. If you’ve moved on/graduated and are now a working professional, you’re technically supposed to pony up for a full license. In the long run, it’ll probably save you a lot of headaches if you buy a fully licensed version now so you don’t have to worry about future upgrade pricing/licensing confusions.

AFWIW, this isn’t intended to be a lecture, flame or anything other than basic information.

[David H dennis]

I have the opposite situation to you – I have a new job which gives me eligibility for the educational price, but since upgrading my existing software is the same cost as a new educational license, I will probably get the upgrade and retain rights to continue upgrading in the future.

It used to be that you could purchase shrink-wrapped older versions of FCP on eBay for about $500 and then upgrade for $250, giving you a total cost of $750 for the $1,000 package. I went that route originally and it worked out fine for me. Unfortunately, prices on eBay are sufficiently firm and upgrade costs so high that this no longer seems to work out that well. Right now I could buy FCP for about $450 and with the upgrade at $699 it winds up being about the same as the cost of a new version.

I’d recommend buying a new copy of the package if you’re no longer academic. If you are still academic, you can push things forward another product lifecycle by paying the $699. I’m not sure if there’s any particular reason to get a non-academic version until your eligibility ends.

At least as an academic I still get Tiger for $69 — a great deal by any standard.

Hope that helps.

D

[Christian Masini]

Great advice, thanks guys!