Hi Bryan, thanks again for getting back to me

I've reinstalled ProX2 and apart from it throwing a couple of wobblies it seems stable enough. I have to remember to import the m2ts file into it and do nothing but wait as I assume it's doing something like decoding it to view it or otherwise deal with it somehow.

I switched off smart rendering under the options but when I encoded my test footage using the AVI file ffdshow codec as before, approximately the first 1 second and 10 frames are still 'faulty.' I imported a different file from the camera into ProX2 and this did exactly the same so I assume there is a problem with the ProX2/ffdshow setup as opposed to the camera files being corrupt in some way.

I have tried various other options for file types but either the file sizes are too large or Elements 2 doesn't recognise them, or the quality isn't as good as the AVI file I created. The only one that comes close is a WMV file in HD at 1080 resolution, but it's not quite as good and it's three times the file size.

My workaround at the moment, although it's a huge pain, is to either slice the first 1s10f or so of each clip, or move the handles of the clip to avoid that first section, in Elements 2, and then the output from Elements is OK. It reminds me a little of 'pre-roll' in the days of old and I suppose it's unlikely that first section of the clip will have something important on it anyway. I'll have to remember that when shooting.

I haven't tried SuperC again, because I am just so confused with all the options available. If the AVI file created by ProX2 didn't have this faulty first second I would be a very happy man, at the moment I am still frustrated but plodding on...

Kind regards - John

PS: Here is a screenshot of supported files in Elements 2. I did try to export a QuickTime Movie from ProX2 but everytime I tried to alter the sound settings from the appalling 8Khz 8 bit mono default, ProX2 crashed...