Don't feel bad about the questions, you raise some good points.

I am using a WorkPrinter-Jr (see www.moviestuff.tv for info) and CineCap software to do frame-by-frame capture of old 8mm movies. The output file is an avi file. This is brought into MS to edit. I do place multiple avi files onto the timeline to form one long movie but the blanks are within individual avi files. As a test, I took one raw avi file and played it using Windows Media Player. It was fine with no missing/black frames. However, once I used the Import Media option in MS, the file had the missing frames.

I will do some more playing with it and I have also posted the question to Sony Technical Support but I hoped that someone else might have a brilliant idea and hopefully a simple solution.

There's more than one kind of AVI codec, cmcdonald. And even more than one type of AVI!

Try opening the AVI in VirtualDub (a free download and a terrific tool) and then doing Save As to save it as a new AVI. Generally, no matter what you toss into VirtualDub, it outputs very compatible AVIs.

(Opening your file in VirtualDub will also give you the opportunity to see if those frames show up as missing. If they aren't missing in VirtualDub, you'll know it was just an incompatible file. If they do show up missing, you know it's a problem with the video file itself.)

Grisetti - Someone else also suggested I check out the file with Virtual Dub. I have never used it before but I have now downloaded it and will give it a try. I appreciate the help from everyone. I am definitely just in my infancy when it comes to this kind of stuff but it is quickly becoming an obsession.

Chris

If you want more information about what's going on, try getting a copy of GSpot and running it against your avi. It will tell you what codec was used to produce the avi, whether it's installed on your pc and where you can get it if not.

Ian G.

OK. Here is a little more info on this very frustrating problem. I opened the file in Virtual Dub and one other program and moved through the file on a frame by frame basis. There arer no missing frames in the avi file. However, all it takes is to invoke the "Inserrt Media" command within Movie Studio and the frames go missing. The same frames go missing each time. Don't get me wrong, 99% of the file is absolutely fine but it is frustrating to suddenly have 1 to 5 seconds of black screen at various places within your movie. I have sent an email to Sony Tech Support but have not received a response yet.

Chris

As a bit of a goofy workaround, if you don't have too many of these types of clips, maybe you could use virtual dub or even Windows Movie Maker to generate a file of a different file format (say a high bit-rate .wmv) that you could then use to "patch up" the missing frames in Movie Studio. Do that once and then generate a new .avi source file that you could use for your editing. I know that a long side-street to take for something that should just work, but at least you could keep your project moving.

I'm assuming, of course, that you've already tried forcing VirtualDub to create a new .avi file.

Interesting. I haddn't thought about making a "patch" and inserting it in place of the missing frames. It obviously will be a bit of work but if all else fails I might give it a shot. Thanks

Chris

Are the frames still missing when you render from MS a section that contains missing frames?

The frames are missing as soon as you import the file into MS before any editing or rendering is performed. I may end up editing with another program and using DVDA to burn the DVDs.