Woah, before you all go...
Okay, I've just started too, and the tutorial disk is very helpful but has overlooked something that maybe is an issue exclusive to my setup, and that is the fact that the four clips I have imported have a red line above them indicating that they need to be rendered.
I have made sure the timeline is the active window and used the space key to stop and start, now I've seen others using FCP and they only render when there is an effect or transition, not when simply placing clips in the timeline - so something isn't right.
Everything else is in accordance with the tutorial and the clips are all viewable.
Is it to do with my camera settings possibly, do they need to be somehow in synch?