I originally ran AE version 7.0, but my hard drive was failing. After replacing the hard drive and all of my software, AE would not open, telling me that the serial number was invalid. I tried to contact customer service, and they said that they don’t support 7.0 anymore, and just tried to sell me an upgrade.
I am considering an upgrade of my Avid system to HD, and in digging around my computer, found an older version of AE (5.5) that my old roomate left in his laptop rescue folder. The footage I will be cutting is shot HDV 720/30 and some will be 1080i.