Re: How important is a capture card?

"I don't know on what you are basing this claim. I know of many people, both personally and from forums, that share my experience of not having issues."

It can't really be disputed - After Effects, FCP and virtually all other video programs dislike interframe-based codecs including HDV. It's just a known problem with using those formats. I have no reason to try and convince you of anything, work however you please. BUT you should search this forum for "HDV" or, better yet, search Google for "after effects HDV" and see the first link that pops up:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=332583

"I have to wonder if there people out there that work in uncompressed who never even tried working with native HDV in AE..."

You seem to be assuming that people who dislike HDV only work in uncompressed. Your only choices aren't uncompressed or using a highly compressed interframe codec that was always meant to be a "shooting" format. Converting HDV to just about any other suitable format (such as DVCPRO HD) would work.

If you are working in After Effects, using uncompressed footage would probably deliver BETTER performance than HDV anyway, because of the interframe issue.

Brendan Coots

Splitvision Digital

www.splitvisiondigital.com