FCE keeps crashing when importing HDV

Question

I have a Canon HV30 and have been shooting on a normal miniDV-cassette, using the Cine-mode on the Canon, which is then in 25 frames per sec, as far as I understand.
I have problems importing into FCE, hoewever. I know thatv I have to use the capture window and that works fine for a little while, but very soon, FCE begins to crash.
I have tried to trash the 4 preference files which is suggested someplace else here and repair permissions etc. but to no avail.
I am not an expert in this, but using Easy Setup, I go for the HDV options, but there is only i50 and i60 and this Cine-mode is perhaps different? I get some lagging warnings, too, but it seems to be able to keep up with the import anyway, at least during the first 2-4 attempts, but then it begins to crash.
My only solution so far has been to import it into iMovie HD and then make a sequence out of it, export it as a mov-file and import that into FCE. iMovieHD has no problem importing. Maybe there should be an idiot-proof mode in FCE:)
Well, hope someone can tell me what I am doing wrong...

Answer 1

There, now I finally got time to try out the suggestion; disconnected the external and connected the camera directly to the iMac and tried 8 consequtive captures without any problems at all. Earlier the crashing began after the third or fourth at the best, so I guess that here lies the problem.
Any suggestion as to how? So far, I have connected the camera to the drive since the iMac has only one FW400 port but I guess I can use the FW800 although both the drive and the camera is 400? I would probably need an adapter?
Well, seems like it is solved, or at least almost. Would have liked to be able to record to the external, but if I could connect the camera directly to the iMac, I hope it would be possible to do so without problems? What do you think?