I was thinking of picking up my first Mac and Final Cut Pro since the IIe :)

I can get Educational discount but was wondering what the caveats are.

I would assume Final Cut Pro could not be used for purposes of making money (I own a business), but what about the hardware? Same deal? Anyone that could help it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Actually there is nothing in Apple's SLA which prevents you from using FCP for anything that you want. You just need to meet Apple's criteria for an "Eligible Education End User" - http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/finalcutpro.html
Academic Copies: If the Apple Software package has an academic label or if you acquired the Apple Software at an academic discount, you must be an Eligible Educational End User to use the Apple Software. "Eligible Educational End Users" means students, faculty, staff and administration attending and/or working at an educational institutional facility (i.e., college campus, public or private K-12 schools).

The limitation is that Educational versions of FCP (and all the studio apps) are not upgradeable. In other words, if you are no longer eligible for the education discount at a future date then you'll have to purchase the full applications if you want a new version. If you enter your educational copy's serial number into an upgrade of FCP it won't be accepted.

But even in this example you would usually come out ahead in terms of dollars. For "normal" people FCP costs $1,000 and an upgrade is $400. For education you will probably pay $300 for a full copy of FCP, then later if you no longer have student status you'd have to pay $1,000 to upgrade. Or if you're still eligible for education prices you just keep buying new copies of each version for $300.

I don't think there are any limitations whatsoever on the use of the hardware. But maybe someone else has direct experience with that.

Thanks Boyd. That's good to hear. Since I have been out of the Mac loop for so long, what constitutes an upgrade. Are you not eligible for any downloadable updates with educational products? Or are we talking major upgrades like 4.0 to 4.5 or 5.0?

Sure, all those incremental updates are free and can be installed using Software Update. The updates which you have to pay for are FCP3 > FCP4 > FCP5 (although FCP2, FCP3 and FCP4 are all upgradeable to FCP5 for $400).

Actually the upgrade from FCP4 to FCP4.5 was downloadable and free IIRC.

Awesome...thanks Boyd. Well, looks like I am going to have to pick up my Tiger 10.4 for Dummies book ASAP :)