That's the problem... we're long on memory and short on CPU with the
patch I'm working on. I hoped I could use [pix_buffer] to get some of
that CPU back at the expense of a lot of RAM...

Besides, I couldn't preload *all* my clips with the 'ram' message
anyways. Only the one I'm currently playing. My patch has 48 clips which
will be addressed by three different players, so a way of storing all
the vids ahead of time is required to avoid lagtime starting the video
when it's requested.

Can you fit all 48 clips uncompressed into RAM? A 1 second clip at 640x480 30fps in YCbCr is about 18.5MB (double that for RGBA) which would allow 3 and a half minutes of video to fit in 32bit address space.

Try creating a RAM disk and copy the uncompressed clips into that. RAM disks might even allow for greater than 32 bit sizes.