I have just bought a new Imac and it will not load my copy of FCE 3.5 as it says "PowerPC applications are no longer supported". So how do I get to use the version of FCE I am used to and have paid for ?

Question

I have just bought a new Imac and it will not load my copy of FCE 3.5 as it says "PowerPC applications are no longer supported". So how do I get to use the version of FCE I am used to and have paid for ?

Answer 1

I do not have any experience with Final Cut, but if you have existing projects that you MUST access; then you are in need of a solution on your new iMac in Mountain Lion!
Unfortunately you got caught up in the minor miracle of Rosetta.  Originally licensed by Apple when it migrated from the PowerPC CPU platform that it had used from the mid-1990's until the Intel CPU platform in 2006, Rosetta allowed Mac users to continue to use their library of PPC software transparently in emulation.
However, Apple's license to continue to use this technology expired with new releases of OS X commencing with Lion (and now Mountain Lion).  While educational efforts have been made over the last 6 years, the fact is that Rosetta was SO successful that many users were caught unaware UNTIL they upgraded to Lion or Mountain Lion.
Workarounds:
1.  Purchase a used Mac that will run Snow Leopard (with the optional Rosetta installed) and continue to run FCE on that Mac (you can actually use Screen Sharing with a "headless" used Snow Leopard Mac Mini and use the 27" screen from your iMac to view and work FCE in the Mac Mini environment);
2.  Upgrade to an Intel compatible version of FCE and hope it converts your existing projects to its newer format correctly.  There is much debate that the newer version of Final Cut are eliminating many needed features; for example Final Cut Pro X vs. Final Cut Pro 6 -- many users are staying with version 6;
3.  Install Snow Leopard (with Rosetta) into Parallels and then install FCE in the Snow Leopard environment:
                              [click on image to enlarge]
Full Snow Leopard installation instructions here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1365439
NOTE: STEP ONE of the instructions must currently be completed on a Snow Leopard or Lion Mac and the resulting modified Snow Leopard.cdr install file can then be moved over to your Mountain Lion Mac for completion of the remaining steps.
NOTE 2:  Computer games with complex, 3D or fast motion graphics make not work well or at all in virtualization.