I'm about to move from Final Cut Express 3.5.1 to Final Cut Studio 3 - just wondering if anyone here has done this and what their experience was like. From what I gather from Apple Discussions is that there is no upgrade path from FCE to FCS. By that I take it that FCE has to be uninstalled before FCS can be installed? Or will FCS overwrite the Express version?

TIA
Chris

Update:
I was wrong, Final Cut Express does not have to be uninstalled, it CAN live happily along side Final Cut Pro/Studio. However, I would strongly advise not using them at the same time to avoid a conflict of resource sharing.

I'm stoked! Not only did my school break for Final Cut Studio, they topped it off with Logic Studio, as well!!!!! I'm as happy as a pig wallowing in a mire.

Update on the installation:

Well, after 3 and a half hours I finally got Final Cut Studio installed. With all the programs it takes up around 5 GB's on the Primary HD. I chose to put the content on an external HD and that takes up a whopping 42 GB.

I was referred to this site for some tutorials: http://www.izzyvideo.com/learn-final-cut-express/
Will see if I can get my head round this monster.

Well, I finally got Logic Studio installed and went to bed at 2AM last night. It took longer than FCS not only because there's more disks, but I kept falling asleep between disks.
Like I said earlier, now all there is to do is get my head round these monsters. ugh

For installations like that you need a disc changer.

With all that content they look like they are priced very inexpensively on a per-gigabyte basis!

Yeah, Rick, a disk changer would have been nice, FCS consists of 7 DVD's and Logic 9 DVD's!!!
If I didn't snooze, I was averaging around 30-40 min per disk.

Man, it sure is a hell of a lot of content and those figures above didn't include Logic Studio's content. After installing Logic, the external content increased to nearly 45 GB while content that could not be stored in a different location was another 25 GB. The apps themselves (both FCS/Logic) I estimate at around 7 GB.

With a retail price of $1,498 for both suites, what's that come to... $19.45 / Gig? (excluding tax)

FWIW- Content that couldn't be custom installed was "Space Designer Surround" and "Space Designer Warped Effects" content and some stuff for WaveBurner. However, Garage Band & "Jam Pack I, II, and III" installs over 14,000 royalty-free Apple Loops; Sound Effects and Music Beds installs over 6,000 royalty-free effects, music beds and loops that were custom installed to an exterior disk.

I'm wondering if I'll have to redirect Garage Band to the new content location?

Hey Chakris,

welcome to the Final Cut Studio world! If you need any help or tips on any of the Application! Shoot me a message.

Shaggy

Thanks Shaggy, I'll keep you in mind next time I'm editing a vid.