Audio Issues Upon Importing - the more I have, the slower they play

Question

I have searched in vain for an answer to this problem. I have a 15" Powerbook Aluminum, 1.5 Ghz G4 w/ 1.25G RAM and 10 GB available on the harddrive.
I am working with iMovie 6 with all my movie files on a LaCie external drive connected using a FW800 connection. 195GB capacity, with about 20GB being used up with iMovie files.
Here's my issue. When I import video alone into a project, we have joy. When I try to add audio clips (either AIFF or MP3), the playback slows to a crawl, the video is severely stuttery and the audio is distorted and plays at about half speed (like playing a 33rpm LP at 16rpm).
If I delete the video and import the audio clips, same issue w/slowness and distortion.
If I import the audioc clips singly, they play and sync well with the video to a point, but there's a threshhold at which the playback begins to degrade and the audio issues return.
Very frustrating. Who can point me to some likely culprits? Of, and this began happening in iMovie 5. I was hoping iMovie 6 would solve. no joy.
Thanks all - Joel

Answer 1

I have searched in vain for an answer to this
problem. I have a 15" Powerbook Aluminum, 1.5 Ghz G4
w/ 1.25G RAM and 10 GB available on the harddrive.
I am working with iMovie 6 with all my movie files on
a LaCie external drive connected using a FW800
connection. 195GB capacity, with about 20GB being
used up with iMovie files.
Here's my issue. When I import video alone into a
project, we have joy. When I try to add audio clips
(either AIFF or MP3), the playback slows to a crawl,
the video is severely stuttery and the audio is
distorted and plays at about half speed (like playing
a 33rpm LP at 16rpm).
If I delete the video and import the audio clips,
same issue w/slowness and distortion.
If I import the audioc clips singly, they play and
sync well with the video to a point, but there's a
threshhold at which the playback begins to degrade
and the audio issues return.
Very frustrating. Who can point me to some likely
culprits? Of, and this began happening in iMovie 5. I
was hoping iMovie 6 would solve. no joy.
Thanks all - Joel
OK - here's an update. I dumped my caches, fixed permissions, made changes to QT settings and reset the MIDI settings and the result? The audio is now running fine BUT the video is now not running (or at least ex-treme-ly sl-ooooooow-ly).
Any thoughts folks? I'd be eager to hear your input!