QUESTIONS - Converted Video File... Loading Issues

I know I haven't been especially active as a tester this year and I apologise for that. But there is a reason... aside from bugs I've reported on before Christmas I've really struggled to find anything new... until now.

Basically, what I've done for my game is create a 5 second animated logo (the Acoders logo!) in AVI format, then used MMF2s picture editor to convert it into an animation, which consists of 183 frames. The size of the logo is akin to the game resolution of 320x240 and only has black and white - I figured only two colours would ensure a speedier load. It's a very simple design, and it pulsates slightly before fading out.

When the game starts for the first time, the XNA runtime is obviously loading it up so there is a delay before the logo appears, and it takes place during the initial "Indie Games/XNA Game Creators Studio" startup logo, so I'm unable to throw in a "LOADING" graphic. A delay of about 10-12 seconds. Note that this is only for the first time, as when I restart the game (ie, by losing all the players lives) the logo appears instantly.

I really want to keep this logo in (I know I could simply use a static graphic but it wouldn't look quite as good); is there any way I can speed up the initial loading process for this?

2nd Question:

Also based on loading - when a level is finished, the game pauses while the runtime loads up new graphics for the next Frame. Here I could easily throw in a "LOADING" graphic, but is there a way for the XNA runtime to load everything in one go prior to the game? What ways could I speed this process up?

Thanks if you can help!

Also out of interest, would it make any difference if I renamed the graphics?

Ie:

Frame 1 - backdrop objects "TileA", "TileB", "TileC", "TileD" etc. Sprited to look like grass tiles
Frame 2 - backdrop objects "TileA", "TileB", "TileC", "TileD" etc. Sprited to look like bricks

Does the XNA runtime store the actual sprited design of these backdrop objects, or the actual backdrop name itself?

Scenario 2:
I copy backdrop objects from Frame 2 into Frame 1, but I don't rename them myself once they appear in Frame 1 - I let MMF autoname them.
If I go back to Frame 2 and rename the graphics to a completely different name, although they look exactly the same as those in Frame 1, will they be loaded up twice before being stored in the memory?

For example, backdrop object "Tile_grass" is in Frame 1. "Tile_moss" is in Frame 2. However, "Tile_grass" and "Tile_moss" look exactly the same - would they be loaded twice?

Ah! Thank you, that's interesting and well worth knowing