You can play the video back in the import tab before you drag it (or a selection) into the project. Once the video is imported into the project, it can't be played back.
Go ahead and ask questions. You can also check out the tutorials.

Thanks for the info. I tried to use the tutorials. However, when i selected File, I did not see "onmyplanet" or any of the other supplied examples. I searched for it on my computer & did not find it. Also, I noticed that in that tutorial it shows a row of 6 buttons (lower left) but my screen only shows 5 (the "file" button is missing). I have the latest SW (downloaded yesterday) so I hope I'm not missing some components.
Hopefully someone can clear this up for me.
Am I right assuming that I will eventually be able to do something basic like play a video, scroll to a section, add an effect and immediately see the effect in another pane before saving the modified video?

I guess I am not understanding something. How can you use this tool if after you import video you can not play it back?
How can you make edits and know what your edits are doing if you can not play back in real time?
How can you synchronize video to a sound track if you can not play back in real time.
I have just gotten this tool and have looked at the beginning tutorials and I do not see one that addresses this.
I do see a button that lets you generate a low res preview, but this can hardly help when you are trying to synchronize things if it takes 10 minutes to generate the preview.

Absolutely, smorgana!.   Iterative  alternation between change and verification is the most basic development process.

If Zs4 cannot support this,  then the developers should drop everything else and work on this, only this and nothing else but this,  until it is fixed!

Zs4 is potentially very powerful,  but could you imagine running emacs as a "batch mode" editor?   That would amount to the very same thing!  I have no wish to go back to editing by removing punch cards from the deck and replacing them with newly punched ones.

I downloaded zs4 based on claims for it's capabilities.   I'm not going to struggle with an editor that lacks progress feedback, however.  I'll check back every few months, and if and when it is fixed,  I'll give it another try.

But in the meantime,  Commercial software,  here I come!

A couple o' things... There's not developerS. There's only one. Me. This is NOT commercial software. I write (maintain) it so that I can produce music videos with a "high end" feel. No more, no less. I can also produce sophisticated visual effects for commercial messages etc... As far as the topic of this discussion goes:

For "basic" stuff I use iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. I produce an average of 2 to 3 videos a week for YouTube using those run-of-the-mill, EZ-use, editors.

if I'm going to use zs4, I use use it in conjunction with several other pieces of software, usually to produce a music video. The more simple zs4 output looks like this (The General Store) and takes me about 4 hours to produce from appropriate footage (2 cams and audio mix-down from 8 separate tracks. The more sophisticated vids (ACAHC or Banana) typically involve at least 100 hours of compositing work. If you want to produce something at that level of complexity (50-100 pieces of footage withing 3-5 minutes) for FREE, you might be interested in zs4. Otherwise, I'd say, it's cheaper to purchase a "high end" program for several hundred bucks and complain on commercial software web sites...

Dear Mr.Zweistein,
as I read, you are doing music-videos.
I saw one of your example-videos.
I consider installing zs4 (or it's predecessor - am using w98se) for creating a music-video.
I read one of the basic (and the list of) tutorials and hope, I didn't simply miss the point of my open question:

How do you achieve a common timing for different footage without going through the cycle (adjusting seeing/listening) several times up to an accurate match of measure/beat in all adjacent media running?

This is of course critical for a music-video.
As I saw, you managed that perfectly. How?

Thanks in advance.
Regards
m.