Importing Media into FCE 4

Please dont shoot me! I have looked high and low and still remain perplexed.
I have been using imovie 08 for sometime now. Although it has a lot to offer I have outgrown it.
I have paid for FCE 4 with a view to taking things to the next level.
I am simply wanting to edit and play with my extensive collection of clips. Some are very old and hence are not very high quality.
These are the clips I want to import and use:
.3gp
Frame : 176 x 144
Rate : 29.97 fps
Compressor : H.263
.mp4
Frame : 352 x 288
Rate : 29.97
Compressor : MEG-4 Video
.avi
Frame : 640 x 480
Rate: 30 FPS
Compressor: Apple Open DML JPEG
.mov
Frame: 707 x 593
Rate: 8 FPS
Compressor: H.264
I can view them, but as soon as I try to play them in the timeline it says "Unrendered" or just beeps. I know I can go to menu item +Final Cut Express > Easy Setup+ and choose one of the irrlevant formats! This doesn't help though.
I have Quicktime Pro 7 and have tried to export my clips to the same format as the project, so thats 'DV- PAL' or 'Apple Intermediate Codec' for example. Makes no difference.
Any ideas would be very gratefully received.

Hi,
FCE4 works only in DV and HDV/AVCHD through the Apple Intermediate Codec.
As you work in standard PAL, the video size will be 720x576 in DV and 1440x1080 in HDV, both 25fps; in this case you won't have to render.
In DV PAL you can also work with anamorphic material (16:9 aspect ratio).
Make sure you set the easy setup to match how you want to work on.
Make sure your starting material matches all the specs for PAL and the video standard DV or HDV as mentioned above.
Pay attention to the frame rate as you might get audio out of sync if you don't match exactly with the frame rate you will work on (I can see you have a lot of 29fps, while PAL is 25fps).
Regards,
Armando.

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