[naderro]

Great! Thank you.
The discrepancy between my 1st and secong post is that I used "Super" for the 1st and MediaCoder for the second.
Last night I followed your suggestion and tried some of the decoders you mentioned. The only one that played back my high bitrate file (lets call it HD!) was VirtualDubMod. However, there was some distortion at the bottom of the picture both on play-back and the input file (provides two windows for observing them simultaneously). I don't know 1) where the distortion is coming from and 2) how to save the outputed file, and 3) the 20 minutes I spent on it there was no audible sound. But it is a far cry from other decoders/players. On another point, what is interesting is that MWV can easily and without any distortion play the file, whereas others seem to be struggling. Is there a hint there?
I will try the re-compressors you suggested.

Cheers once aagin