Hi
Having used 3.24 a bit more with a re-do of a bigger project containing many more mpeg4 clips (250 or so) I can suggest the following...
Add the clips to the media list gradually as you require them for editing. If you add them en masse it takes longer as VP has to generate all the media list thumbnails before you can start work. (I foundVP had a tendancy to either crash or go into a "no reponding" mode with a white screen if I started editing immediately, and I could hear the PC working overtime as well) If you want to add a load of clips, set them loading and wait.
No other thumbnails are rendered to the cache at this point until you add a clip to the timeline which causes some slight delay each time depending on the length of the clip . So again, don't add clips en masse to the timeline as this causes a big delay. I found it best to add them in twos and threes and edit these as I went along. Once the thumbnails had been rendered however, re-using that clip was much faster as the thumbnails were already present in the cache. Rearranging the timeline or cutting clips meant that a new round of TNs had to be generated for the sequence preview pane.
Has anyone actually found these useful? IMHO it's the generation of these thumbnails that slows this version (and previous ones) down. Perhaps one TN at the start of each timeline clip or at each split as is the case with WMM. It might make the whole thing faster
I can't actually see the need for one every 5-10 seconds or so, either, as all you need to be able to do is recognise the clip in question and then scrub along with the cursor bar to the point of interest shown by the preview. You can easily do this with one TN and the name shown above the clip preview pane.
Running the cursor line along the sequence pane simply reproduces the same action in the timeline itself so you can pinpoint a particular spot just as easily with them or without them. Even if the scene changes within a clip, it won't necessarily coincide with a particular thumbnail. See what you think about this by dragging up the preview panes until the TN band disappears.
The Media list thumbnails on the other hand are very useful.
Nat