I have a 450 MP G4, final cut pro, over 500mb ram, a seagate ultra160 cheetah drive, adaptec 160 card, latest firewire drivers from apple, quicktime pro. Canon MV10 (Vistura)

Question: Why does my imported video jump and drop frames?

Is it something to do with capture settings........I used to have a pinnacle card and use the s-video in which was perfect but this card is not supported by G4 . I thought that firewire was meant to be higher quality but anything I capture is unusable.

Have you checked all your preferences, are they all set to PAL (I assume if you're in london you've got a PAL system?). Also try trashing your preferences from the system folder, also there are issues with PAL and which version of Quicktime you have, go to www.2-pop.com which is a great FCP site with extensive forums devoted to these problems, if none of the above works post there and you will get help...

Thanks! I'll give it a go