Thanks Dave but I’ve tried Aiffs and wavs … still get the flat waveform … I’ve reinstalled I’ve gone through all my apps and deleted anything that possibly might conflict … I’ve removed any codecs that might cause a problem I even bought the QT mpeg2 component in the vague (and foolish hope) that it might help… I’m really stuck … I can’t work on AE projects at home and have to stick to my office PC … not good !