Update on Final Cut Express Progress

For about three weeks I have been tying to upload videos to Final Cut Express, but was facing problems at very stage. From actually having a lincese on a working Mac, to actually get the clips into the software. The manual and everything I read online stated that the clips should be added though the Log And Transfer window, in a MOV or MP4 format, however it wouldn't let me upload a video on that format, or any formats at that. 

So in todays lesson, I looked at it in a different angle. So tried to convert it in a software called MPEG Streamclip, a software I has seen used in some videos or articles about uploading to Final Cut Express. But even when I tried to add the video though the 'Log and Transfer' tab it just didn't work. So looking at more videos, I came across someone who uploaded it through the import file tab on the file tab. Before this hadn't accepted any of my file types, however after converting one of my clips to evey single file type available to convert to on MPEG Streamclip, there were four it let me open; DV, AVI, WMV and MP4. However as you can see from below, when I actually added the clips to my timeline, it wouldn't let me play them but instead display an image reading unrendered. When I googled this error message it was hard to follow the issue, 

In the end I discovered that the DV file didn't didn't display this message, as you can see here. 

Upon further research when I got home from Sixth Form and wasn't faced with any blocked websites, I came across this answer and advice explaining the error message; 'any time you edit your movie, you need to re render it, it does take a long time to do for the first time, but as you make only minor changes in your video, you can render it faster, but to render the audio and video, you need to press "alt+R". For more detail just look in the sequence menu on the bar on the top of the screen.' So when I'm back at Sixth Form and on the Macs I will try this,