[Pat Horridge]

If you go FCP it will have to be FCP-X as FCP7 is now EOL
and you need a top end Mac to get FCP-x to play nice. With that spec Mac you could easily run Media Composer which unlike FCP runs on Mac or PC.
The new HP iMac type machines look really good and at less cost than an iMac…

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

You need to upgrade to Windows 7 Pro 64bit and you want 4GB RAM min (ideally 8GB or more)
A supported graphics card like an FX3700 would be a big help.
But I suspect you’ll be disapointed. The new software is much more demanding of the hardware so you’ll see a big drop in responsiveness and performance.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

Your option 1 should work. you do want to have the current MC version 6.5.2 for the best results but this is a known and used workflow that the finishing post house should be able to manage.
You can also add additional metadata to each batch of imports of course.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

If you have issues with consolidated or transcoded media it sounds like the traget drive for that media may have an issue.
Consolidated media is effectively the same media copied and wrapped as MXF.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

Epic and Scarlet AMA support came with V6 of MC.
On a Mac you could AMA to the QT Ref files and that would work but you don’t get access to the RAW metadata like you do with AMA to the R3D files direct.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

I’m not sure express is an upgrade path for Media Composer. Woth checking on the Avid store for what qualifies.

The Avid web store also has the required specs for PC and Mac so start there.
The new HP machiens are the Z420 and Z820 so if you want an older and cheaper Z400 or Z800 you may have to lok for used or referbished.
ebays a good start.

If the media lives on your old computer drive you can take that out and mount it on the new computer to transfer.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

[Job ter Burg] “Find a refurbished HP Z800 or Z400 and you’ll be good for some years. Or get a full-blown Z820 which will set you back more but will last longer.”

Brillinat machines the HP Z range. We have 400’s and an 800 and they are really well built and fast. I hope to grab an 820 as soon as I can. The PCIe 3 internal bus will allow my SSD RAID to run at close to 1TBps without the two controller cards I currently need.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

Just not worth bothering with the old kit. The cost will be in the new MB CPU and RAM. Much better to buy a new complete system. Ideally a system certified for Avid use.
As others have said. Media should move across fine. The best avice is to make new projects with the same name and copy the bins you need over. Also re-create new user settings don;t bring your old ones across.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

You can upgrade the software ok but you’ll need a new computer. That I’d one won’t run windows 7 64bit.
Time for a new computer.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

Epic files are only supported in V6 onwards of MC. How did you invest them?

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US