Editing .mkv video

[engywook]

Hey!

I'm trying to make a custom music video for a band. It worked fine when I had dvdrips but now when I try to edit 720p(h.264) mkv files it doesn't work. I used avidemux to extract the video from the mkv. avidemux's copy mode didn't work for me, when I tried output format AVI I got a black screen with audio and with MPEG Video mplayerc says it can't render the file. When I try to edit it with vegas it says "unsupported format". Do I need some codec?

I'm quite the newbie when it comes to video stuff. Here is what I'm trying to do:

I have multiple files I need small portions of video from. Then I want to edit the said bits and sync it with the music. Then I guess I'll have to encode it again?

I'm looking for a way to minimize the number of times I have to encode it, that's why I tried avidemux's "copy mode". Without that mode I'd have to encode already encoded files, edit it, and encode it again...

What am I doing wrong and what is the best way to do this?

Engy

[Baldrick]

Try convert it to avi using xvid4psp.

[engywook]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Copying to avi resulted in a black screen again. mp4 worked though. Now I have another problem though, what should I render it as?

If I render it as HDV 720p 24p intermediate mplayerc says I don't have the required codecs or filters.(ffdshow not enough?)

If I render it with the Default Template(uncompressed) I get no sound and frozen frames.

Ideas?