AutoDesk Smoke :: Resizing Mxfs Ready For Editing?

I am doing some tests for an edit job I would like to use Smoke for tomorrow.

Some of the test footage appears to have been shot at 1440 x 1080 and appears squashed on my 1920x1080 sequence.

I see there is a resize option that can be applied to footage.

Does this resize effect have to be rendered before becoming visible?

The reason I ask is because in Avid when you work with this footage via AMA there is no need to perform a resize and therefore is very quick to start cutting with.

Having to resize and render a huge bin of rushes would take a long time and I assume would move the media into Smokes storage folder (creating new media and taking lots of space).

This leads to another general smoke question, can it do realtime effects. Again Avid can handle tons of these and makes for a speedy edit. If everything has to be rendered in Smoke before you can playback realtime then it makes me think that Smoke should be used as less of an everyday editor.