[Passenger Robert]

[boydmcc] “When you crossgrade from FCP Studio 5.0, you receive disks without serial numbers. The cost of $49 is only for shipping and handling. In fact, I used the Universal disks I got for one copy to crossgrade a second full retail version of FCP studio that I had, without sending the disks from that copy in to Apple (I wasn’t sure, but it seemed like it should work and it did).

I’m not sure how or why PR’s situation worked and Apple is pretty cagey about these things. It could be just in how they are handling the upgrades from their standalone apps (Motion, STP, DVDSP), since you’d have to get a complete set of new disks for all the other applications in the studio, you’d need to get new serial numbers. It’s probably a “bug” in their system that since they can’t tell if you have an academic version by the disks themselves, that they send the retail version back.

However, if you sent in disks from 5.0, you wouldn’t get new serial numbers, and if you had an academic version of 5.0, it would stay that way. “

That makes sense to me!

[Passenger Robert]

[boydmcc] “When you do the crossgrade, you just get the disks. The “academic” vs. “non-academic” is in the serial number that you use. The application is exactly the same, therefore the disks they send are exactly the same. You get new disks, BUT you do not get a new serial number with the new disks, so if your SN is from an academic purchase, then the crossgrade is still an academic version of FCP.”

This statement is partially correct. . . Apple actually sent me new serial #’s. I still had my “old” serial number stickers that said, “Academic” on them. The new one’s that came with my cross-grad said, “RETAIL” on them. I reformatted, installed– used the new serial numbers that came with my cross-grade– and i had a full retail version. So– like I said, I can’t speak for what apple is doing at this point– but as one of the very first cross-grad customers out there, I asure you, that I was upgraded to “RETAIL”.

[Passenger Robert]

I am a student– I did have the Academic version of “soundtrack pro”– i followed the cross-grade procedures through apples website– I paid the $199.00 plus tax and sent in my sound track discs. Apple in return sent me the entire suite in the Universal format– and it was NOT academic. I sent in my disc the first day they advertised the promotion– as a result i had to wait about 2 months to get my discs. So– I can tell you what happened to me– but that was a long time ago– so I can’t say they’re still opperating it the same way.