Using different format video than the sequence.

Question

I am a total newbie to FCP, though quite experienced with avid, premiere and vegas.
I've created a sequence in FCP with setup: 640x480 25p with quicktime settings photo-JPG 75%. I want to do a quick rough edit of tons of random footage I have, all using a variety of different format videos, some quicktime PJPG, some MJPEG, and some DV (no hard to edit mp4, mpeg etc.). I understand that to preview my edit properly I need to render my selection with command or option + R, but at the moment I cannot preview my edit at all without rendering. This is the first time I encounter something like this, other editors will at least play the edit - even applying basic effects, but just dropping frames - I'd need to render to play without dropping frames. But in FCP if my source footage is DV or any other format i just see a big UNRENDERED screen. Is there any way around this without converting all of my footage into P-JPG (which is definitely not a feasible solution).

Answer 1

Yea sorry I should have mentioned, its version 5.1 and its not my machine I'm using it on (Mac Pro 3Ghz 2x dualcore)... hence my profile not showing it. I am considering buying a Mac Pro and FCP (at the moment I have only the Macbook Pro).
I've heard so many positive things about FCP now that I thought the switch was inevitable - and this project I thought would be a good test to try out FCP. But from what I understand I picked a really wrong project to try it out! All the footage is already captured, some captured years years ago - and I need to do a quick edit. ... some of my source files are DV, some are MJPG, some are 640x480, some are 320x240, some are 720x576 etc.
To convert all of this footage to one res/format would require hundreds of gigs, and take way too long... I'd probably finish the edit in premiere on PC before the conversion of the media finished! The point of this edit is to get an idea of the finished piece, to narrow down the areas which I need to extract from all of the footage - i.e. in premiere I would do this rough edit, then 'trim' the project with a massive handle (a couple of seconds), and THEN convert all the trimmed media to one resolution/format (Which would be waaaay quicker, as its only 30-40mins instead of 50 hours) and then finish the edit/grade, work on individual shots in aftereffects, combustion etc. I really don't know much about FCP when it comes to setting up, options, performance etc... so I"m really hoping that I've set something up wrong somewhere. I"ve done DV edits on this machine before and they were very straightforward (DV files, on a DV timeline, DV project etc - nothing out of the ordinary)
MacBook Pro C2D 17" Mac OS X (10.4.9) Week 46 Build