First week with FCE, a few quick questions...

Question

Okay, I am going to try to keep this short, but I have a couple questions about FCE.
1. When I am capturing video/audio from my camera, I am using my MBPs internal hard drive, so I want to keep as much free space as I can on here. Once I'm doe with the video, and its finalized, is there a way I can just keep the rendered/compressed version on my MBP, and maybe move the project folder to my external in case I want to make changes later down the road?
1b. This may be a stupid question, but what files can be deleted if I want to erase a video i was making but no longer want (i have 2 test videos when I was learning how to use FCE) and want them gone.
2. Each and every time I make a change in the time line (like adding clips, transitions, effects, music, etc.) do I have to render it (because it keeps saying unrendered)
2b. Music I import in from my iTunes library wont play, i just get a beeping, do I have to render it?
3. If I capture a clip from my camera, and I have it in a bin in my project window, and I just want to use half of that clip and delete the rest (so it doesn't take up space) how do I go about doing so? Just set the in and out point, drag it over to my timeline, and delete the clip from the bin?
3b. My final question, if and when I delete a clip from my bin, does it permanently delete or is there another way I have to go in and delete clips.
As you can probibaly see, my main concerin is saving space and deleting clips and "thing" i dont want anymore or i am not going to use.
Thanks for your help in advance!!

Answer 1

2. FCE pro "accepts" many video formats, but it has trouble playing them in real time. Most video formats are highly compressed and not good for editing. For example, if you have a master frame every 24 frames, that means a cut into the middle of that such a run of frames requires FCE to render the master frame and 11 frames following to get the 12th frame of the compression sequence. FCE simply can't do this in real time. You can get around this two ways:
a) In the upper left corner of the sequence window, you click on the RT menu and select "Unlimited RT". This works sort-of. You will see skipped frames and other anomalies during playback that will not be in the final result rendered movie. This usually doesn't help for audio rendering problems though.
b) Convert your incoming video to a quicktime DV/DVCPRO file using a resolution that matches your incoming video resolution. DV/DVCPRO compresses only within a frame, rather than across multiple frame, so each frame stands on its own and is easily rendered in real time, no matter how you edit it.
2a. Again, the audio rendering issue. You will see a red bar at the top of the timeline with the iTunes music. I assume the audio clip is from a ripped CD, not the iTunes store, as iTunes store audio files are locked and can't be used. FCE wants an easily processed audio format. See page 211 of the FCE user manual. AIFF is a good choice. To convert the iTunes audio to this format, control-click on the iTune track and select "Show in Finder" from the popup menu. Drag the revealed file onto Quicktime player and then export to AIFF format.
When working with an FCE project, it is usually a good idea to make a folder to contain both the FCE file and the related media files converted from whatever their source format was. When you are done, you can back up the originals, and the FCE project file. If you ever need to rework the FCE video, you can reload the originals and reconvert them, rather than backup the large DV/DVCPRO and AIFF data files.