For my limited interest, QT sounds like the way to go. The free 6.2 player will open the MP4. In fact, it's the only player I can find that WILL! I assumed, from blowing up the video, that what I would get is very crude lossy images. JPG artifacts start showing up at less than 200%. Not to worry. All I want them for is to drop in the background and "trace" from. QT's ability to stitch TIFFs is also great news. I am aware of the advantages of generating frames rather than a stream of video, but if putting that together means owning at least a mid-range video editor, that's more than I care to commit to right now. Thanks for the suggestion. Cheap is good. M