Okay, the very first item: Frames. I never render to a finished movie; always to an image sequence, that is a folder of individual files, one file for each frame. You want that folder full of frame masters, lossless, at the highest posible resolution. This gives you total power. You can open that image sequence in many post-processing apps and manipulate to your heart's content, and then output to a host of formats/compression. It is the foundation of control. I have the entire Adobe Video Suite and all the apps can import and export an image sequence. But at a lower price and lower complexity: Quicktime Pro, $29.99 at apple.com. QT can import and image sequence, and on the way in you tell it the frame rate. Once it assembles a movie of your image sequence, you can make final video with a certain choice of compression, AVI, etc. The longest image sequence I've imported into Quicktime is 1800 frames. It got a little sluggish, but performed. With more advanced video post-processing software such as After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Premier, etc., you are not hindered by the frame count. Now, going in the other direction. If you can get a movie open in Quicktime Pro, you can EXPORT TO IMAGE SEQUENCE! That's right, it will take your clip and give you a folder of frames. You can elect TIFF as the format for the frames and get lossless results. Now, Quicktime will open certain .avi clips, but not all. It will open most mpeg/mpg clips, but not all. If Quicktime Pro will not play your clip, you might have to get certain codecs, OR find a translation app that will turn your clip into a format Quictime will open. Besides the software I've mentioned here, there are others from inexpensive to expensive, that will also do the job. ::::: Opera :::::