Animation quirks help

Hi all,

I am using the animation toolbar to generate time-series animations/.avi's of raster catalog imagery (interpolation surface outputs). My time field is populated appropriately and all *seems* to run just fine! However, we noticed some issues that I hope can be resolved.

The main problem is that for no apparent reason, some days/dates in the time-series are being left out of the .avi animation. I mean, it just skips over those specific dates without any rhyme or reason, and the rest of the animation does not have any issues. I've verified that the days getting skipped do exist in the raster catalog and are visisble in the map display when I cylcle through the Time-View in the Animation Manager dialog.

Before I go and post up all of the various details/settings for the setup, can someone comment on a similar experience they've had? Anything to look for?

edit: ArcGIS 9.3.1

Also: I have not "Played" the animation completely prior to "Export To Video". I cannot remember exactly, but I thought reading about this that it should be done before generating any .avi exports?

Thanks!
James