Rendering problem - Please help!

Question

I'm a FCE 4.0 newbie who is assembling my first presentation using stills in .tif format. I've been adding stills to the presentation, inserting them into the timeline without transitions (at the advice of a friend who said not to overtax the application). I'd gotten about 2/3 through this process (131 slides out of about 200) when the timeline color turned light orange upon adding slide 132. The previous 131 slides were still showing as green (rendered).
I've tried rendering that still, using different stills, rendering the entire presentation, and rebooting the application, all without success. I've tried deleting the Preferences, but the filenames and locations have changed since v.2 and I can't find any online instructions for locating and deleting Preferences in v.4.
FYI, I'm using a 1TB Seagate external HD as my scratch disk, so storage is not a problem.
Does anyone have a suggestion as to how to proceed from here, or at least where to find the proper Preference files to delete in v.4? I'm under a tight deadline and would really appreciate the help. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Basically, here's what's happening:
You're working in Unlimited RT mode. What this means is that your computer is trying to play back everything in realtime (normal speed), even if the application and your computer can't really handle it. Because of this, you sometimes get dropped frames. Don't worry about this - it's not that you're losing parts of your photos, but rather it's the computer's way of telling you that it is unable to play everything back at the normal speed and because of this you're not seeing every single moment of the video while editing. You can set FCE in general preferences to not display this warning, in which case it will still try to play as fast as possible but won't give you the annoying popup. Another option is to hit Option-P when you want to preview instead of the space bar or play button. This plays the video from the timeline as fast as possible without dropping frames. Finally, a third option is to set your timeline to Safe RT (you can change this setting on the left of the timeline window). When you apply certain effects to your images, the sequence will simply display in big ugly letters "UNRENDERED" when you try to play the film. Working in Safe RT has the advantage that it's very clear what needs to be rendered for smooth playback, but also the necessary disadvantage: you can't preview the project without rendering first.
Now we get to what the colored lines mean! The color green means "preview" - FCE is telling you that your computer will for the most part be able to play the clips back without rendering first. However, you may experience problems with dropped frames or choppy playback. Generally, it is always a good idea to render before watching it all the way through. ALWAYS render everything out before exporting the final project. Once rendered, the colored line above the clips turns to a light grey (or as you described it, purple). This indicates that your computer has saved a render file of the sequence and it can now be played back at full speed without dropped frames.
The "vertical purple bar" you're seeing in the canvas has nothing to do with your clips or rendering, but is simply the graphic FCE displays to let you know that your playhead is over the last frame of the sequence.
So now we get down to your questions. Everything that you've described so far is normal FCE behavior. You should have no trouble adding transitions or music, besides the fact that you may need to render again for smooth playback.
Hope that helped things make a bit more sense. It's a difficult program with a steep learning curve, so make sure to ask me to clarify if anything didn't make sense or if you need more help.
Sasha