Hi.  I hope someone can help me with a weird request.

I am teaching a course (Digital Post Production) at a university that has FCS everywhere (!) and only three seats of Xpress Pro that they are unwilling/unable to upgrade to MC soft.  I start teaching a three week session on Avid tomorrow.  I have already upgraded to MC 3.1.2 on my Mac Book Pro, which I want to use for demo-ing.  Does anyone know how I can downgrade to XPress Pro 5.8 (the last version I ran)?  I did download the software, but the app won't launch.  Could it be because my dongle is already updated?  I did uninstall Media Composer.

Thanks for any (quick) help!

Karen Kleinheksel

MacBookPro 2.4GHz Core2 Duo, 2 Gb RAM, OS 10.4.11, QT 7.5.5

Xpress Pro was limited to QT 7.3, and you're running 7.5.5.  That may be the problem.  Do you get any error messages or other clues when the app fails to launch?

What I would do is just run it as Media Composer and explain either a) that XpressPro is the discontinued "little brother" of MC but they are basically the same in terms of workflow and use or b) you can show off certain cool things in MC that you can't do in XpressPro (or FCP)

Who knows maybe the students will salivate over the MC and force the school to upgrade the seats!  To upgrade XpressPro to MC for an educational institution is peanuts.

Thanks for the replies.  I was really hoping I could get it to work without trying to downgrade the QT...I don't want to mess everything up on my laptop (reinstall OS, etc) 'cause this is temporary!  Any safe/easy ways to go back to 7.3?  I still have it, but have to figure out how to get rid of 7.5 first.

Randall, I get no errors or clues -- click on the icon and nothing happens!

Kenton, I may have to go your route, but I was going to let some students use my laptop to start projects, and then wanted to move them to the university stations to finish on their own.  Don't think they can do that from MC to XPressPro...How many peanuts, exactly?

Karen

k2edit:

I was going to let some students use my laptop to start projects, and then wanted to move them to the university stations to finish on their own.  Don't think they can do that from MC to XPressPro

Sure they can.  Just make sure they're not using any effects that are not available in XpressPro.  Even if they do, they'll just show up as "blank" icons and as long as they don't change anything or unrender the effect somehow it should stay in tact provided they have their media.  It's just more frustrating to build a composited effect and have to lose it altogether.  Other than that, any projects or bins created in MC can be moved to XpressPro and vice versa.  

Though, I personally would create a new project on XpressPro and then copy only the .avb (bin files) from MC to XpressPro.  That way, you're not running any risk of corrupted projects or settings etc.  Moving the Bin files from system to system forward and backward across platform, version, and product is a great demonstration of Avid's flexibility over FCP.  You can't even open a project edited in 6.0.2 on a 6.0 system!

As far as the cost, I know that for individuals I think it's like $300 or something for the edu-discount.  It may be even better for institutions based on the volume.  Best thing I could tell you is to contact an Educational Reseller.

Education pricing for Media Composer Soft is $295 for new seats. To upgrade existing Xpress Pro seats is only $99 or $124 per seat depending if you are current under Avid Assurance. Feel free to email me directly for more details.

Educational Sales Manager, North Region

AVID Technology, Inc.
^{make manage move | media™}

George_Klippel@avid.com

O-724-325-3842

C-724-757-1485

Well, George, thanks for the #s.  Unfortunately, the answer was still no.  I was tempted to buy it for them!      But for now I will go with Kenton's advice...

Karen

k2edit,

A good resource for the Xpress Pro to Media Composer transition is the MC 100 series called "Making the Move from Avid Xpress Pro to Avid Media Composer".

Sample lessons from this series are available on Community Tips and Tutorials as well as on YouTube.

Adam