dennis,
thanks for the reply.
i cleared the cache and trashed prefs (had no idea how to do either – but google what a concept!)
neither worked in solving the render issue.
i opened the offending clip in a new project with no fx at all.
still renders to red.
so…
i opened up my old trusty copy of winavi and attempted to convert the file to several different file formats.
after trying several that all failed, i was able to convert it to an avi.
i inserted the avi into the project and tested a render — worked fine.
the entire project is rendering now.
my best guess is the file (taken from a new droid phone), must’ve been corrupted somehow. odd though that all clips appeared to be the same and all would play in several different media players.
while i’m still stumped as to why it rendered that way, thankfully, there’s always a work-around.
appreciate the input
tom