[Daniel Greeney]

Hi Dave and Dean,
Sorry to butt in, but I’m a little confused by Dave’s response here. When you say that the image won’t look as crisp because DV is a lossy codec, you’re only referring to the imported *text*, right? It was my understanding that DV is *not* lossy when it is exported. It’s just ones and zeroes. It is only lossy when coming from a higher-quality source, right? Or when originating on tape, where I understand it is a 5 to 1 compression. It’s not *re*-compressing 5 to 1 each time it is exported.

On a recent project of my own, I have exported the same Quicktime files with minor edits out of Final Cut and then re-imported and exported *those* files countless times (I won’t bore you with the reason why), and have done direct footage comparison and there is no difference with the original raw data and the 6th copy. (Keep in mind the original footage was DV).

Otherwise, the workflow you describe is sound for AE.