Can I load source video from multiple file formats into Vegas 4 for editing... all at once... say an avi clip, an mov clip and an swf clip... all at once?
>>> What is the issues with the quality of the final render?<<<
Depends on your preoject settings - if you are doing a DV NTSC project, for example, and you bring in mixed formats you may have mixed quality on final render. If your end result is streaming media you may be fine. Depends on what goes in - I.E: small 120x240 Indeo 4 video may not translate well to 720x480 DV video. And that sort of goes to the next question -
>>>And, 'real' time render ?<<<
I meant 'real time' preview. The smaller the format the better the real time - so if you are cutting alreay compressed, small, video for the web and you toss in a dissolve you will see it more 'real time' than if you are doing a project and you try to dissolve between, say, a DV file and an HD file. 'Real time' also has a lot to do with your system and memory and fun things like that - so in a simple thought pattern: smaller is faster, bigger is slower and mixed formats can fall anywhere in between.
>>>And, firewire output ?<<<
When editing to preview out to a TV/Monitor most common is to go via firewire. Currently VV only outputs DV material via the firewire. So if you have QT files they won't be sent out via firewire - unless, maybe, they are QT DV files - but I can't be sure on that as I have not tried to play QT DV files from the timeline. Obvioiusly you can do a pre-render or a preview to RAM to try and get firewire output but in reality you can't get 'real time firewire output' unless you are using DV material. And even with the DV material if you toss in fades or dissolves or almost anything other than a fast or slow speed change the real time might not even happen to the firewire.