Quote: I've noticed that preview quality appears to be locked at HIGH in the Preview Window, it won't let me select any other quality settings (higher or lower)

You likely are previewing a raw clip. Place it on the timeline, THEN the preview quality choices should be selectable.

Yep, I was previewing the raw clip. How is the preview quality determined when viewing raw clips? So, since this is H.264 raw HD clip (from Hero3), is the viewing resolution I see in the preview window at it's best? Also, when I place the clip on the timeline and set the preview quality to Full HD, the quality is quite a bit worse then what I see when previewing the raw clip? Why is that?

On a slightly different note, what do the preview quality settings actually do? What is the resolution degradation used for the different quality settings?

Is there any way to adjust the playback speed in preview (other than fast-forward)? Is the only way to see different playback speeds to put the clip on the timeline and then adjust the clips playback speed individually and view the clip from the timeline?