Hi-

   I am just about to upgrade from pro 5.6.4 to mc on a pc and I was wondering if I have to upgrade quicktime also. And I have to completely uninstall pro first, right? When do I upgrade my dongle? How can I make sure that all my pro sequences are saved onto my drives so when I upgrade I don't lose them? Is there a way I can check that? I'm sooo nervous b/c there always seems to be problems with upgrading. Any sage advice beforehand? Thanks!!

-Nik

If I recall correctly, yes there can be issues going from Xpress pro to Media Composer, but I am unsure if they involve your version.  I think they don't.  But to be safe, it's always okay to uninstall Xpress Pro before installing Media Composer.

Regarding the version of Quicktime, that depends on what version of Media Composer you're going to.  Every version of MC is very QT dependant--and depends on its very specific qualified version. 

...this also is dependant on when you upgrade your dongle.  2.6 and before used "dongle dumper" and 2.7 and after use "dongle manager:"  I would assume that you're going to 2.7 or later (most likely version 3.0 if you're buying the upgrade now), although it's possible that you want to go from Xpress Pro 5.6 to MC 5.6 (which are similar in structure...just that MC includes more features.)  If that were the case, than you could upgrade your dongle at any point (that is, so long as you're not upgrading it to anything past 2.6).  If you're upping your dongle to 2.7-2.8 or 3.0, then you need to upgrade the dongle after installing the newer version of MC.  (it installs the proper drivers and the correct version of dongle manager).

Your bins/sequences should not be uninstalled when you uninstall Xpress Pro.  But to be safe, it never hurts to copy your projects to another location (a desktop folder, or a firewire drive or thumb drive, etc).  They should have no problems opening back up in Media Composer.

Remember to write down your registration information for QT Pro (if you purchased it) when you upgrade the versions (if it's gonna get rid of it, it will prompt you to write it down).  Also, Avid recommends installing QT before MC so that the codecs are certain to go in the right place.

Lastly, and most importantly, the best advice I can give you is to download and read (skim for information pertanant to you) the readme for your new version of Media Composer.  When you download Composer, there should be link to download the pdf.  I would download that and read it first.  It will give you the important information such as NVidia driver versions, QT versions, Windows Media Player versions, when to upgrade the dongle, and whether or not you need to uninstall when upgrading.  That is the best thing you can do to make this go as smoothely as possible.  I have given you generalized info, but reading the readme for your specific version of composer will tell you the specifics that you need.

Hope it goes well.  I do this kind of thing all the time, so I am no longer nervous.  But it's okay to be nervous the first time.  The readme notes should help to calm those nerves.

~Hammer