Pro Tools 11 Student Upgrade

[Carl Kolchak]

Avid made it absolutely clear in the webcast that anybody who had previously purchased the Student deal including 4 years of free updates, would absolutely continue to have those free updates honoured.

The £99 upgrade price is only for people who missed that offer, and is the price of future updates for students.


The unknown at the moment is student users with CPTK2 - I don't know if there will be a concessionary upgrade price to HD11 software, or even if there was some prior concession for students towards CPTK2 (I wouldn't be surprised if CPTK2 was meant to be out of students price range, and that they would argue that if you need to upgrade to PTHD11, you are no longer a student, but have professional demands).

Further more, anyone who may have purchased PT10 & CPTK2 within the 7th of April - 28th of May amnesty period technically qualifies for a free upgrade to PT11, so shouldn't they be entitled to a rebate against the $999 upgrade fee to PTHD11?

Would be nice to hear from Avid on the specifics of this before the amnesty is up.

[Craig F]

DVTK2?, that's was dead in 9

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by Craig F

DVTK2?, that's was dead in 9

Yeah, typo - I meant CPTK2 the second time I mentioned it.

I'll correct the error to avoid further confusion.

[nigelpry]

peter5992

AFAIK exactly no HD features available to CPTK owners are being cascaded down into standard PT11. They all remain PT11HD only options.

These were definitely specifically quoted in the webinar q&a log as remaining HD only ...
Surround sound mixing
Disc cache loading of projects into ram
VCAs
Higher track and bus counts

I think there would have been a brief mention of any cascade down of HD features, to further whet the appetites of plain PT users.

[nigelpry]

As for student 4 years free upgrades ... the basics are clear ...

The 4 year deal is being honoured, if you have it and it is still in date you'll get PT11 free. And 12, 13 and 14 too if they come along before YOUR 4 years runs out.

The $99 student upgrade fee is something different .... ie

Avid will no longer be selling 4 years free upgrades deals to students. If you have not already bought it you are too late.

Instead, they are selling a new offer, in which students will pay no more than $99 per upgrade.

One snippet of info I've not seen as yet is whether the $99 offer is time limited, in the sense of how long you can keep invoking the deal. If you buy it now as a 20 year old, will you still be getting $99 upgrades to your student licence when you're 60? I doubt it!

I'm also very curious about the situation regarding student discounts for the PT+CPTK to PT11HD upgrade. That's a bit of a minority case, so I'm not surprised it hasn't been declared yet. When the time comes I'll be asking thoguh, because I'm in the same boat.

My story ...
Bought PT7LE and Music Production Toolkit with educational discount as a sudent back in Digidesign days. Thankfully in grace period so got PT8 and Music Production Toolkit 2 upgrades free.

Upgraded MPTK2 to CPTK with educational discount as a student still in Digidesign days.

Got shafted when PT9 (I think, or was it PT10) came out, anyway whichever was the first under the Avid banner. Pretty sure it was 9.

After trying to order the educational upgrade, I was told, still have the email somewhere, that the educational discounts were only available to US customers, so I paid the full 8 to 9 upgrade cost.

Around 2 or 3 months later, student discounted upgrades became available in the UK, too late for me.

Also paid full price for the upgrade from PT9 to PT10. But that was because the extras were so enticing that I couldn't wait until the student upgrades became available, I wanted it on day one!

So I have a bundle PT9+PT10 licence, and a CPTK Licence.

Then, last autumn, I saw a student bundle offer of PT10 and Media Composer 6.5 with 4 years of free upgrades, so I bought that. Great I can learn Media Composer (extra string to bow and all that) and all at a cost that is way less than I was expecting to have to pay for pro tools updates over the next 4 years. Plus I now have 2 PT10 licences, so I can run it on two machines at the same time if I need to.

So I can get a PT11 licence free with one of my PT10 licences, that's my fall back position if something is not sorted out regarding the PT10+CPTK fiasco. In that case I'll sell on the 2nd PT10 licence and the CPTK licence so someone who can afford it can take advantage of the upgrade path to PT11HD with those licences.

But of course I love those HD features I've purchased by buying the CPTK licence, and I'd much prefer not to lose them. The full upgrade price of £999 quoted for that is way too much for me. If it is significantly reduced following the outcry, then I may be tempted. But if a student discount is offered on the upgrade I'd go for that instead as it is bound to be cheaper.

I don't expect that particular option to be clarified just yet, I guess we will have to wait for the dust to settle before they get their heads around that one ... whether to offer it, and if so, for how much.

This time I'm going to wait patiently to see what is offered before making a final decision on whether to upgrade to PT11HD or to sell on the licences. In any event I'll get my plain PT11 free upgrade as soon as that is made available.

[r.heyman]

So, everything is clear... maybe.
I understand there is a difference between student and educational license, I bought PT 10 student last Feb from reseller. How do I know if I have 4 years free upgrade deal? On my account is only stated PT 10 for student.
Or all student licenses are entitled to free upgrade if purchased before 7 of April ?

[Caatalyst]

I saw a post today made by Rus on Pro Tools Expert.

Here is what he says Avid stated about student upgrade licenses:

Any student who bought PT10 Academic on the 4 year free upgrades will get PT 11 free, they will need to confirm they are still a student.

Any teachers and institutions will need to pay $99, as the 4 year deal was only for PT10 Academic users

If you bought PT9 academic, you are not on the free 4 year upgrade, only PT10, the 4 year deal came out just after the release of PT10.

All future buyers will not get the free upgrade, it will be $99 for all academic users once their 4 year deal runs out.


It says above that only PT10 users get the free 4 years upgrade. This adds more confusion to my situation as I bought Pro Tools 9 back in 2009 and it clearly states on my receipt:

Avid Pro Tools 9 - Win/Mac DVD - Student- Crossgrade from Pro Tools LE (requires iLok, includes 4 years free upgrades)

Why are only Pro Tools 10 users getting this upgrade? It states on my receipt '4 years free upgrades' so why does it matter if I purchased 10 or 9?

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by Caatalyst

I saw a post today made by Rus on Pro Tools Expert.

Here is what he says Avid stated about student upgrade licenses:

Any student who bought PT10 Academic on the 4 year free upgrades will get PT 11 free, they will need to confirm they are still a student.

Any teachers and institutions will need to pay $99, as the 4 year deal was only for PT10 Academic users

If you bought PT9 academic, you are not on the free 4 year upgrade, only PT10, the 4 year deal came out just after the release of PT10.

All future buyers will not get the free upgrade, it will be $99 for all academic users once their 4 year deal runs out.


It says above that only PT10 users get the free 4 years upgrade. This adds more confusion to my situation as I bought Pro Tools 9 back in 2009 and it clearly states on my receipt:

Avid Pro Tools 9 - Win/Mac DVD - Student- Crossgrade from Pro Tools LE (requires iLok, includes 4 years free upgrades)

Why are only Pro Tools 10 users getting this upgrade? It states on my receipt '4 years free upgrades' so why does it matter if I purchased 10 or 9?

As it was stated on this forum earlier today. Current students Users terms of purchased will be honored in. It's only for NEW users that the rules changed.

http://duc.avid.com/showpost.php?p=2026305&postcount=7

[matthias.matthias]

Originally Posted by Carl Kolchak

The unknown at the moment is student users with CPTK2 - I don't know if there will be a concessionary upgrade price to HD11 software, or even if there was some prior concession for students towards CPTK2 (I wouldn't be surprised if CPTK2 was meant to be out of students price range, and that they would argue that if you need to upgrade to PTHD11, you are no longer a student, but have professional demands).

I too own PT10 Student + CPTK2 and am really concerned right now. There is no way I could afford the 999$ to keep functionality that btw I paid for already.

I wouldn't agree with the professional demands argument, since I really have to learn functionality like the entire automation system including VCAs etc. and other HD only workflow feature BEFORE I can go into a professional studio and start making money. And isn't learning what the student version is all about?

[Caatalyst]

Hi Emcha,

Thanks for clearing that up. Somebody better tell Rus over at Pro Tools expert before more people get confused!

How does this work? Do we just receive an email or does it get updated in our account area on the Avid website?

Thanks in advance.