hello,
I've been searching this forum and found out that many people complain about this problem in FCP, but couldn't find a solution.
I've been working fine with many projects before, until my projects started getting bigger (in videos and effects). Now everytime I move a clip around, i get the annoying msg "preparing video for display"!! I'm working on a DV workspace, which should be simple and no heavy load. my next project is 10 bit Uncompressed video; I don't wanna end up with a disaster!!

Any help?

my system is:
FCP HD on G5 2.5
4G of RAM
250G internal SATA
1.2T external SCSI
ATI 9600
QuickTime 6.5
OSX 10.3.9

This will occur if FCP has to resize the material to fit the dimesions and settings of the sequence. For example, if you have a still photo of large dimensions to place on the time line, FCP will have to 'prepare the video for display'. Make certain that your sequence preset matches the capture preset to minimize the work FCP has to do in order to correctly display the material on the timeline.

-gb-

ohh, now it makes sense.. i have few videos in the begining of the sequence that are smaller than the project settings (I had to mix videos). But the message appears even when I modify the normal DV videos. Is that normal?

ohh, now it makes sense.. i have few videos in the begining of the sequence that are smaller than the project settings (I had to mix videos). But the message appears even when I modify the normal DV videos. Is that normal?

If you can identify the offending modified clip: try putting that clip in its own sequence, do what mods you want to it, export as QT movie, then re-import into the sequence you want.

thanx. I'll consider that in my next projects