Rendering

BG Render does not only pause when you hit play. It pauses when you skim, select etc. Just about pauses ALL the time IF you do anything. If you do nothing it does NOT pause.

That is why I say that selling FCPX as "Rendering belongs to the past" is a lie. Only difference 'tween rendering in FCPX and FCP is that in FCP you have to do it manually.

Hoax x 2000000

you do have some control; you can cancel rendering tasks so that the one you want to have happen will occur first. you can also reduce the delay time before background rendering starts -- it defaults at 5 seconds of idle time, and you can reduce that all the way down to 0 seconds (it seems). You can also disable background render; I'm not sure what that would do (e.g., maybe offer you manual controls?)

The fortunate thing is that most things that require rendering can be played without rendering.

Most, not all, some of the heavy duty generators freeze up the playback.

i was going through all the keyboard shortucts and looks like there is one for render selection. control-r http://help.apple.com/finalcutpro/mac/10.0/#ver90ba5929

How do you disable rendering?

looks like you can do it in preferences > playback tab, & uncheck background rendering