uhh... wow, I do not know what you are talking about friend!
QT cannot edit by any means I am aware of.
FCP edits nondestructively
Assuming you have the UI layout in its default setting, you should have 3 windows on the top, and 1 on the bottom.
The 3 on the top are as follows:
Browser--This window lets you browse all of your assets as well as effects.
Viewer--This lets you look at a specific piece of footage or sound. This is also where the tab for animating clip properties, transition properties, and effects properties.
Canvas--This is where you view your actual edited footage--ie what is in the timeline.
The bottom window is the timeline.
This is typically how my workflow goes:
1) capture footage, or otherwise add assets to the browser.
2) organize assets in bins and whatnot.
3) drag first piece of footage to the viewer.
4) scrub trhough the source footage in the viewer, marking the in and out points of the piece of footage I want. (I do this by right clicking the mini-timeline in the viewer and selecing the option I want)
5) drag from the viewer to either a) the canvas or b) the timeline. If you drag to the canvas window, you will have several options available which will allow you to insert the new footage relative to the current playhead position in the timeline. If you drag to the timeline, a box representing the space your fottage takes up will appear, and you can place it precisely where you want.
6) repeat steps 4 and 5 for all the pieces of footage you want from the source clip currently in the viewer.
7) add effects (use sparingly) and transitions.
8) repeat steps 1-7 as footage becomes available.
9) add chapter markers in the main timeline
10) export to Compressor, encode video and sound.
11) repeat step 10 for all formates you wish to encode to
12) get video and sound assets into DVDSP
13) build DVD menu structure
14) burn DVD
Some important things to note--
-When you drag source footage to the viewer, you cannot destroy source footage. However, when you drag a block of footage from the timeline to the viewer, changes you make to the in/out points as well as clip properties will apply to that block, even though the entire source footage will be available in the viewer.
-By default, FCP links video and audio bloks to ensure synchronization. To toggle this, press "shift+L," or click the "linked selection" button in the upper-right hand corner of the timeline window.
-You can enable or disable snapping by pressing "n," or clicking the "snapping" button in the upper-right hand corner of the timeline.
-To add markers, go to the mark menu and you will have many options available to you. Note that the Canvas's mini timeline also represents the actual timeline, while the viewer timeline represents the timeline of the source footage it is viewing. If the Viwer has focus when you mark, you will mark the source footage it is viewing (this is nondestructive). If the timeline or Canvas has focus, you will mark in your edited footage. You can use the " ` " key to add markers as well, and there is a button to do this in the Canvas window.
-Chapter Markers should be added in FCP. If they are added in DVDSP, they can only fall at the start of a new GOP. If you have markers in place before hand, Compressor will ensure that a new GOP starts wherever you put your markers.
-To zoom in, drag the size of the scrollbar at the bottom of the timeline, or use the slider immediately to the left of this scrollbar. I find the behavior of this method somewhat annoying at times, but it works.
-Interpolation is always linear, so animation where nonlinear interpolation is necessary is difficult.
-Vegas uses a velocity envelope to retime. I find this to be superior to FCP's retime function, which is a function of time/frame (ie, the velocity curve Vegas uses would be the first derivative of the time/frame curve FCP uses) In any case, both retiming and animation are much better left to a composting package, such as Shake or Combusion. Motion is OK, but not quite there yet, IMO.
-It may be a good idea to activate the safe zones overlay in the Canvas.
-At any point in my workflow, footage may be exported into Combusion, composited, and put back into FCP.
-At any point in my workflow, I may zoom in on the timeline and perform precise edits not possible with the Viewer. This becomes especially true if the source footage being viewed in the viewer is very long, such that movements of the playhead in the viewer's mini timeline are very general and not precise. In such edits, I often use the tools such as rolling edit and knife. These are essential to good editing in FCP, IMO.
-Final Cut Studio comes with 20lbs worth of instruction manuals. FCP alone is like.. 4 volumes. You have them in PDF form, and they are quite useful.
Having used both Vegas and FCP, I think that FCP is a far superior program for purposes of editing. The workflow is much more streamlined and fast. Vegas, however, does have its strengths. For example, the aforementioned retiming funcion in Vegas is easier to use than that in FCP. Also, compositing in general is much easier in Vegas. FCP's chromakeying algorithm is superior I think, but the way compositing works in Vegas is nicer IMO.
I think that once you get a feel for the tools in FCP, you will be much more comfortable with it.
hope I could help,
-loki
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