Using Matrox .avi files in Vegas Pro 8

[SCDVD]

I have some footage from an associate that I am going to edit in Vegas Pro 8. It is HDV footage that was captured using the Matrox RT.X2 card. The files are Matrox AVI files which use their proprietary codec. I bought a Matrox M.key which attaches to a USB port and allows the codec to be unlocked by the system. After installing the M.key, the files are recognized and play fine in Windows Media Player. I can load them into Premiere Elements that I have in the system but almost never use. But when I attempt to load them into Vegas Pro 8, the video does not display on the timeline, only audio.

For whatever reason, Vegas does not seem to recognize the Matrox AVI codec. I'm pulling my hair out on this one. Any ideas?

[poisondeathray]

Many file types are recognized/playable on the system or WMP, but "non-importable" into Vegas. Sometimes you can frameserve these non-importable files into vegas using a "dummy" avi file (only a few KB big), and avisynth. You can try:

makeavis (comes with full ffdshow installation)

avs2avi (note there are 2 versions, 1 is for frameserving)

avfs avisynth virtual file system
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=133313
http://www.turtlewar.org/avfs/

Another option is a lossless intermediate (e.g. lagarith , huffyuv), but beware vegas 8 can do unexpected things to the gamma and levels with different types inputs depending if it's 8-bit vs 32-bit project.