Apparently our technical support department has been fielding a lot of questions about the real cross compatibility matrix of the various versions of Pro Tools currently shipping. Keep in mind that the information presented here is true today, but is likely to change (most likely for the better) in the very near future.
- ProTools LE for Macintosh – can open ProTools “TDM” sessions, and ProTools NT sessions if saved as a “Mac” session.
- ProTools (TDM) for Macintosh – can open ProTools LE sessions, and ProTools NT sessions if saved as a “Mac” session.
- ProTools NT – Can open any ProTools MAC session (v4 or v5) that is stored on a Macintosh formatted “HFS” disk. ProTools NT can also create or save sessions as “MAC” sessions. For proper cross-platform compatibility, you should store these sessions on a Macintosh formatted “HFS” disk. The latest version of “MacOpener” is recommended for mounting/opening Mac/HFS disks on an NT system
- ProTools LE for Windows 98 – There is NO current cross-platform support for the Win’98 version of ProTools. You cannot import Mac or NT files. You cannot export files to Mac or NT. The next version of Win98 will have the import and export capabilities to get to and from these other platforms.
Also keep in mind that in order for plug-ins to transfer seamlessly to another system, that system must have the current versions installed. If not, you will get an alert telling you that one or more plug-ins could not be created in the session.