Hello!

Does anybody know how to upgrade my Media Composer 2.8 (EDU/Academic) Version to 3.0. The version was bought a week ago (June 2008).

The following link seems not to be the right one:
http://www.avid.com/register/30_cpr_form.asp

Thank you for your friendly help!
Best, Micha

That link will work fine.

Thank you for your quick answer! However what kind of information am I supposed to fill in the field for "Company" as a student?

The same you entered into the form when you qualified for MC academic.

After registering your 2.8 there you are lead to the download site where you can download the dongle-update-file (versioner.avd) and the install-files for mc3.0 (beware, it's about one gb zip file, downloading may take a while).

If you only now registered your 2.8 you will at first run into a problem: versioner.avd won't recognise your dongle, it won't let you update the dongle (although you - like me - are fully qualified to the free upgrade). I had that problem a few days ago, but after the weekend i downloaded the versioner-file again and could update my dongle just fine.

So please try and update your dongle first, before you uninstall 2.8 and then reinstall 3.0, or you might not be able to use your avid for a couple of days.

Good Luck!

Thank you for your answer!!!!

Actually, I didn't think that EDU versions were upgradeable... 

In the past, the only way to get the next version was to shell out the $300 for the full Academic version again. 

Has this changed?

Only MC edu versions bought after march 08 are upgradeable as far as I heard.

and only until July 08

right. the treat was the same for all versions bought after march 18th, full or academic. it's not really an upgrade, more sort of "buy 3.0 now but get 2.8 until it's done".

Where did you here this about upgrading EDU versions? I have a MC EDU purchased after March 08, only just registered a few weeks ago. Going to the upgrade link at http://www.avid.com/register/30_cpr_form.asp informs me that my system ID is not eligible for upgrade, and the note on that page says "Also note that educational products can not be upgraded through the web store. Please contact your local reseller for educational upgrades." My original CD is v2.7, so I'm not sure if it is saying I'm not eligible because it's an old CD/dongle, or because it's Academic. Has anyone successfully upgrade an EDU version online?

Well, not online per say...

The long and short of this story is that I picked up the EDU version of Xpress Pro to teach my nephew to edit. I use Avid at work and he'd been getting interested.  So he started with Windows Movie Maker ( I know) and quickly hit the wall with that.  So I found the Xpress Pro EDU package, bought it, and 2 weeks later they announced that they were dropping Xpress. I hadn't even had time to install it yet!

So I made a few emails about upgrading and low and behold the new Avid came through.  Not only did they upgrade me to MC - they did a FULL upgrade to MC (so Sorensson Squeeze and all the associated software was included). Oh yeah, they did it for Free.

They didn't have to, I didn't even ask.  I was willing to pay to the MC software, butthey just snet out the MC box.  So AVid gets BIG PROPS from this editor.

So if you're in the relatively same boat as me, I would suggest contacting customer service.  See what they're willing to offer now.  Also, make sure your system can handle MC.  I actually waited to install MC until I had built a new machine (Yes to Avid spec, but I like to build them myself).  Now I'm about to go Vista - and that worries me.  But that's a different story.

Hope this helped!

Mark Santora

As part of Avids "new thinking" strategy all purchasers of MC 2.8 that purchased after march 18th were offered free upgrade to MC 3.0, though the offer was limited until july (15th, i think). This holds for full boxes as well as for academic (aka EDU) boxes.

I have not only heard about the treat but even experienced it first hand: I bought MC 2.8 in late april, registered my system, and when 3.0 became available i could download the programm and the versioner file that updated my dongle to 3.0 .

There was no "special offer", i didn't need to convince anyone at avid, it's just part of their upgrade policy. If the page won't let you upgrade, talk to Avid. Marianna and BLKDOG here at the forums have been quite helpfull to smooth the paths and sort things out, but there are other ways, just take some minutes to read the dozens of "problems upgrading" threads that flooded this forum a few weeks ago.