Version compatibility between MAC and PC

[lemans]

I am experiencing difficulties opening files that were created on the MAC Pro Tools LE 5.2.1. I am using M-Powered 8 on a PC with Windows 7.

I can succesfully transfer the files to my PC using MacDrive, but none of the files are recognised by my PC, they don't seem to have any file extensions. And more importantly, Pro Tools does not recognise these files.

I was told by the sales team at Avid that the 2 would be compatible although some of the plug-ins might not work.

Has anyone else experienced a similar problem?

lemans

[spkguitar]

The real problem here isn't one of compatibility between the two platforms, but the AGE of the software that created the files in the first place.

Originally Posted by lemans

I was told by the sales team at Avid that the 2 would be compatible although some of the plug-ins might not work.

While this is largely correct, it really depends on quite a few things. If the sessions were created in the same version of Pro Tools on each platform, and the origination user isn't using outdated audio file formats (SDII, specifically), there should be no problems what so ever.

Originally Posted by lemans

I am experiencing difficulties opening files that were created on the MAC Pro Tools LE 5.2.1. I am using M-Powered 8 on a PC with Windows 7.

THIS is where you get into problems. Pro Tools did not have automatic cross platform compatibility until version 7 or so. If the originating engineer on PT5.2.1 did not select “Enforce Mac/PC Compatibility” option when creating the session, or when saving a session copy (which was required in the earlier versions for cross platform compatibility), then they will not be accessible on the PC. This is probably what is happening in your case.

You need to ask the origination engineer to select “Enforce Mac/PC Compatibility” and re-save the session for you. You will also want to ask the original engineer to make sure to use wav or aif files, and NOT SDII files.

[lemans]

spkguitar,

I am going over to my engineer's this weekend for a recording session. I will check out his settings to see if “Enforce Mac/PC Compatibility” is enabled, I suspect that is isn't.

Many thanks for your advice.

lemans