How to stop "Preparing Video for Display"

I've used FCP for countless projects but haven't ever tried to put hundreds of stills into the timeline for a final result that looks like what free software packages produce for consumer camera stills.  I have a number of questions related to achieving this result, but I'll start with this. 
The 'preparing for display' message comes up when I move chunks of pictures around.  It freezes all activity until it's done (rendering?), and usually the action that led to it is a minor thing that still needs further manipulation.  Would it help to reduce the resolution of the stills?  How do I do that all at once?  There are too many to treat individually.
Thanks for letting me know how to stop getting my process hijacked!
It is really slowing me down, and I'm on deadline.
With much appreciation,
Roxane

Still images are NOT video. FCP has to translate each image into a format that will play as video.
This process happens on the fly and as the numbers of images go up, the amount of time and system resources required to accomplish this also increase in a linear way.
There are a couple of things you can do at the system level.
1. make sure you have your RT playback set to Unlimited.
2. in System settings, increase your stills cache. By default it is around 10% of FCP's RAM. If you have 4GB or more in the machine, your RAM available to FCP should be set at 100% and you may want to bump up the stills cache to 50% (or more if the project is mostly stills). Do not raise it to 100% as you have to leave some free ram for the program.
Along with what Russ has suggested, you should get better performance. You need to be realistic though. FCP is a video editor, not a slideshow generater. If the work is a slideshow, there are better tools.
Have fun.
x

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