Many thanks for the detailed description and quick response.

(1) On menu page 2514 (Animation Record) select whether or not the animation will be a V/K Pair by activating the PAIR & V/K MODE buttons. (2) Set your record duration (I usually make the duration a little longer than the actual clip to allow for the Tape Op & you not starting at exactly the same time - you can always trim out unwanted frames later & recover the memory. (3) Select FILE NAME & give your animation a name...it needs to be 3 letters followed by a number (eg. CAT1). (4) Turn on the RECORD ENABLE to put the FM into E-E mode. (5) When ready, press the RECORD button. You can use the STOP button to stop the recording before the assigned duration time. These actions create a header file (CAT1) and also creates individual frame memory pages that will all start with CAT1, followed by 5 digits (CAT100001, CAT100002, etc.) This naming convention is important - if you IMPORT TIFFs, BMP's or TGA's using the IMPORT function in the FILE menu, be sure to create a naming convention on your import sequence so that after import, the 8000 can recognize these imported files as belonging to the same sequence...that way it can create clips & animations out of them. (6) On menu page 2515 (Create Key Frame), select the register number in which you want to create the animation. Note that you cannot have that same effect number called up on the keypad...if you do you'll see an error message when you go through the next steps. (7) If your animation is a V/K Pair, make sure that the PAIR button is activated in this menu. (8) Use the SCROLL knob or the slider to find the animation that you want to use - you can then use the VIEWER knob to jog through that series of stills in the thumbnail pane. (9) Press the CREATE KEY FRAME button - the system will string the selected still sequence into individual keyframes & build that into the selected register number. The one issue with this is that each keyframe will be the default value (1 sec on my system), so the timeline created is not "real time". You can either go through the process of changing each keyframe duration to 1 frame (a real pain), or simply change the EFF DUR to a rediculously low number - I use 2 frames. A number like that will cause the timeline to compress to its minimum allowable length, which will be the real-time equivalent of your animation. Keep in mind that the maximum number of keyframes allowed per register is 99. Also, keep an eye on the upper right area of your menu screen - it will let you know how many available keyframes are left for the level that you have selected. I often run out of KF's on my USER 5 region (where I have FM's 1-4), so I have to change gears & put the FM animations onto other channels which are on different regions where I have more available KF's.