I apologize to BrandonC for taking over his message but I think that I know what he is getting at. Having a character in front of a television and having him react to what he is seeing requires that you can synchronize what that frame of the avi file looks like with the character's response. If you move the timeline to frame 85, you want to see how the avi file looks at 85 so you can change the character's motions after frame 85. You can't do that unless you render at frame 85. Basically, you are at trial and error in constant rendering. If you could somehow move the frame through the animation and see what the avi appear at each frame, it would help.