The red frames are frames where Vegas can't read the correct information because there's a problem of some sort with the file.

I just realized that Vegas adds these blank frames on the timeline when the original AVI is loaded, so it is not something that occurs in the render process. When the AVI is dropped onto the timeline, a series of red frames appear right where the black frames appear in the converted versions. When the video is played in the preview screen, the screen flashes black instead of red at this point, just like it does in the converted versions. This flash does not appear when the original footage is viewed outside of vegas though.

If other programs can read these frames and produce a glitch-free conversion then it seems like the bug would still be with vegas not being able to read video data at these dead-spots.

There's an MPEG2 repair tool mentioned somewhere that might help with your files. That may fix them enough that Vegas can properly read them.

If I get this thread, he is rendering avi to wmv and getting the blank frames? As the thread progressed he seems to have discovered that the defect is something in the original footage (avi) that Vegas cannot read and thus the 'red' frames on the time line and the blank frames (black) in the rendered wmv.? First question, how willan MPEG2 repair program help this? I don't remember that he was ever in MPEG2. Question 2 what kind of avi file is the original?

I was kind of wondering the same thing, since the starting point is an AVI file and not MPEG. The input footage is AVI 2.0 created programatically using Microsofts DirectShow component of DirectX. It is essentially a series of screen grabs to create frame-by-frame animation of mathematically generated fireworks shows, with an audio stream as well. Every frame is created the exact same way, which is why it seems strange that Vegas would have problems reading just a few frames in the exact same spot every time. Other programs like Windows Media Encoder can read the file and convert it just fine without running into problems reading the same frames.

That's a pretty essential piece of information. Umm... gee, that's not exactly a video stream for which you might expect Vegas to be tested by its developers???

Exactly what codec are you using inside the AVI wrapper? If this is a proprietary codec then there is no guarantee that Vegas (or any other NLE) will decode it properly.

Can you export out of whatever is creating this content as a tiff sequence? How about as an AVI using the Microsoft Video 1 codec - it's not bad for image-sequence-like content, and should be supported in DirectShow.

I've also dealt with this issue by doing an intermediate render as soon as I pull non-standard content in. The intermediate could be to AVI/NTSC-DV or AVI/Cineform, depending on whether it's SD or HD. Then pull in the intermediate render for editing and final work.

I've used the Microsoft Video1 codec as well as the Cinepak codec by Radius and Vegas still screws up both of them. If the original AVI plays fine and can be converted by other programs, it would seem to me that Vegas is the one with a problem.

Kyle, while Vegas is often referred to as the "Swiss Army knife" of NLEs, it's imposssble for any NLE to do everything people expect of it.
I used a dpsVelocity in the past and, while it was a great NLE, there were formats it just would NOT handle and I had to use other tools to get the job done.
Vegas prefers DV-AVI so, as has been suggested here, convert your footage to that format.
Also, you said that your project is "essentially a series of screen grabs".
If that's the case, why not save the frame grabs as sequentially numbered files (PNG is best) and bring this into Vegas as a still sequence.
I do this with Lightwave and Maya files all the time and it works.

The program that generates the AVI files is a product I developed for simulating fireworks shows so that they can be visualized prior to shooting them. This program outputs an AVI file of the show animation, which a user most often uses to make a presentation DVD. My customers are generally non-video experts and probably just use Nero or whatever freebie software came with their computer or DVD burner when making these videos. I've never had any problem with glitches when making DVDs using the AVI output from the program. The only reason I'm making WMV files is to get the file size down so I can stream some demo videos from my website. I'm not a video expert either, but seem to be getting dragged into it over this one issue.

If I could just get Windows Media Encoder to convert AVI files made using the Cinepak codec then that would solve my problem also.

I think I'm just going to give up on Vegas and use Movavi to make these conversions. At least Movavi gets the job done without screwing it up and only costs a fraction of the price of Vegas.

Bit confused here - I thought you weren't able to use WME because of your desire to use the Cinepak codec.

I really wish you'd given all that info about how the source file was generated in the first place - that would have saved a lot of head scratching about frame rates and the like. Likewise knowing that there are red frames on the timeline is kind of useful to know!

Never heard of Movavi. It looks like one of countless inexpensive conversion apps that are on the market - but if that's all you want to do then Vegas is overkill for you anyway I guess.

I didn't know about the red frames until the point that I made the post. I'm learning this stuff as I go. Thanks for taking the time to respond to this though, I really appreciate everyone's responses. It doesn't seem there is a fix within Vegas though. The solution was just to use something else to convert formats. Movavi seems to work great. The only reason I bought Vegas was I planned on adding more elaborate introductions to the beginning of each video.

Convert it to a different format that Vegas can properly read! Then you can use it for adding the extra stuff you wanted.