Maintaining Two FCP Installs?

[Oedipax]

I'm taking a film production class at the moment and our editing stations at school are still currently running FCP 4.5HD. Meanwhile, on my home system, I've upgraded to FCP5. I know there's minimal problems going from 4.5 to 5 with a project file, but somehow I get the feeling the reverse isn't true.

Because I'd like to be able to work on my stuff at home in addition to school, does anyone have any experience keeping two FCP versions installed on their system? I did this for a while with FCE and FCP, after I first upgraded, but it seems like FCP just assumes you want to upgrade your installtion, I don't recall being asked if I wanted to install it somewhere else. I would try renaming my FCP5 directory and installing 4.5 again, but I think it'll still erase files in the non-Applications directory.

Has anyone had any experience doing this? Is there a guide or anything? Maybe some alternative method I'm not thinking about? Worst case scenario, I will probably uninstall FCP5 and put just 4.5 on there for the semester, but as you might imagine, I'd like to be able to use 5, too.

Thanks for any help! I've just recently bought my DVX100A, so you'll probably be hearing more from me in the other forums... The DVX Book covers a lot of ground, though.

-Oedipax

 

[Beta]

I've read that the easier way to do this is through XML import and export. This article says it's not very hard to do. I've never tried it, but check out this article and tutorial about "Opening FCP 5 projects in FCP 4.5 with XML Export/Import."

 

[Oedipax]

I've read that the easier way to do this is through XML import and export. This article says it's not very hard to do. I've never tried it, but check out this article and tutorial about "Opening FCP 5 projects in FCP 4.5 with XML Export/Import."

Awesome, thanks! This sounds like it'll work fine.

 

[mmm]

I currently run FCP 3 and 4 on my machine.

Actually , have just been editing something in FCP3 whilst FCP4 runs off a DVD with compressor. FCP3 will still output over firewire and runs pretty smooth, even with MPEG 2 compression going on... and I am still using my old dual 867 G4.

I would try to do that if possible, but I don't know if 4.5 and 5 will act the same, guessing they would.

With 3 & 4, if you open a project in 4 and save it, it will no longer open in 3.

 

[jleo]

On of the safest methods of testing this is to create another account on OSX and install any new app or combination for that account only. The project files are still on your hard disk where they always are and can be accessed by either account. If there is any incompatibility problem between the two programs ,you can delete the account. If not, then install the new app on your regular account.