questions on image ready brushes, real media files and photoshop elements

I know a lot of the brushes that come with the photoshop/imageready bundles can be used in both programs, but I've downloaded a new brush set or two recently, and after putting the .abr file into my brushes folder I've found that they and they work fine in photoshop, but not in imageready. Are photoshop brushes different from those you can use in imageready? Is there something I'm supposed to be doing to make them compatible or to make them work in and I've just missed? Or are they just not compatibilbe and that's why it doesn't work? I mainly want to find out because I've been using image ready for my animated icons, so I've taken to just using that program for all my icon making and not using photoshop really at all.

Also, can photoshop elements be used for animations? I've recently acquired the program after hearing how wonderful it is. I guess I'm just really trying to find one program that I can do everything on without having to switch back and forth so I can save the lag that ensues on my compute when I open lots of programs.

I've recently delved into mini movie icons, and I've been using power dvd to get caps from mpg files (which for some reason works very well on mpgs and avis but not so well on wmv files for me). I've had limited sucess capping real media video via repeated use of the print scrn button. Does anyone know of a program that I can use to cap real media video files, or of a program that I can use to convert real media videos to mpgs so I can cap them using my software? Once again, trying to limit myself to as few programs as possible if possible, so that my compy just doesn't give up and die. Any help anyone can give on any of this would be appreciated.