Having problem with FCP 5.1.4 adding transitions. Just new to this app.

Question

So I get 2 maybe 3 transitions set correct. After that none work properly. ie: lets go for the quicktime zoom transition. So as it zooms out it plays the first quarter of the 1st part of the transition in the zoom box. This is not correct it should be playing the second part of the transition. Anyway about 1/4 of the way through it does play the second half of the transition which is correct and plays the rest of it properly. It does the same for cross dissolve and all other transitions. I have trashed the preferences but that doesn't seem to help. I have also changed the preferences and that doesn't help. OS is 10.5.8; 6g of ram; powermac g5 quad core 2.5ghz;
Please if anyone can help.
Below I entered FCP 6 because 5 was not available.

Answer 1

Just to clarify, by "FCP 5 friendly source material," he means video files that are a format (codec) that FCP 5 supports. What FCP 5 supports can be found in the EASY SETUP list. If the format you are working with isn't there, say if your footage is H.264 or MP4 or some other web compressed format, FCP won't work properly.  It needs to be in an editing codec if you want FCP 5 to work with it.
Also, you need to make sure that your sequence settings match the settings of the footage you are trying to edit. If you add a clip to the sequence, and immediately have to render, that's a big clue to say that something isn't right. You should edit without rendering at all. 
The most important thing you need to do is properly set up your project from the start, and the best way to do this is to choose a setting from the Easy Setups, located under the Final Cut Pro menu. Once you do this, you’ll need to create a new sequence.  This is because the sequence that is already in your new project is setup for the typical default setting of DV/NTSC, or for the settings of your last project, which might not match what you are currently working with.  So delete SEQUENCE 1 and create a new sequence:
This new sequence will contain the settings you chose in the Easy Setup menu, and should match the format you captured