FCE4 not rendering?

I just opened a new project and imported all of my footage. I went up to sequence and tried to render the clips so that they will play, and it won't let me render them. Any ideas why?

Rendering only applies to certain clips that are in the Timeline. You should be able to watch the clips in the Viewer before editing them into the Timeline.

Also if the clips are already in the Timeline and they aren't rendering, make sure that the Timeline is the active window! You may see the red render bars, but if the Browser or any other window is the active one, nothing in happen in the Timeline. I know this sounds like a simple, obvious thing but many times my students are trying to apply a command to the wrong window.

I feel stupid. Thank you.

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?

Take the clip, drop it on the timeline. Then take the same clip and put it in the first viewing window. Then, go to sequence, and render all.

That works, but it's annoying and time consuming - surely I shouldn't have to render a clip unless I'm adding some kind of effect.

If your sequence settings don't match your clips settings, you will probably have to render a lot. If you have DV footage, for instance, make sure your sequence is set for DV-NTSC, and not for XDcam or some other format. You can change the sequence setting from Final Cut Pro>Audio/Video Settings but I think it will only apply to the next sequence you open.

Usually when you drag a clip into a sequence with different settings FCP will ask if you want to change the sequence settings to match the clip settings, which is exactly what you want most of the time. Make sure this alert is enabled in the Editing tab of User Preferences. It's the last option.