Flickering video when daisy chaining firewire devices - HELP!

I have a 12" Powerbook with a single firewire 400 port, to which I have attached 2 daisy chained external hard drives. I have no problem capuring video off of my camcorder when I daisy chain it onto the end, but when the firewire is sending video the other way, as in the case of "printing" to tape, or using a television during editing, the audio clips and the video flickers substantially.
I've observed that connecting the camera directly to the computer eliminates this problem. Of course, it's a bit awkward, since I also eliminate my scratch disks (the external drives)! I've tried a firewire hub as well, and it seems that either the extra device or the doubled length of cable is interfering with the signal in such a way as to cause the flickering.
Has anyone else experienced this problem?
In any case, I'm thinking about buying a MacBook Pro. Assuming I run into the same problem, I was thinking about adding firewire buses with the Express Card slot. Has anyone done this, or have recommendations for firewire cards that reliably work with MBPs?

When you say 'flickering' what do you mean?
If the playback is stuttering, meaning the data rate is not being sustained, then it is a Firewire glitch. If the video is strobing or rolling then it a video issue with the timeline or the capture settings or something else.
We daisy chained Firewire back in the day on the first edition Powerbook (400Mhz with 10GB internal) and had no issues, that was 4-5 years ago, so your PB12 should be fine with this.

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    0xffffff81d4be3e90 : 0xffffff7f8491803c
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    Parallel ATA Device: PIONEER DVD-RW  DVR-112D
    Parallel ATA Device: PIONEER DVD-RW  DVR-112D
    USB Device: hub_device, apple_vendor_id, 0x912f, 0xfd500000 / 2
    USB Device: USB Receiver, 0x046d  (Logitech Inc.), 0xc50c, 0xfd530000 / 4
    USB Device: Apple Cinema HD Display, apple_vendor_id, 0x9221, 0xfd520000 / 3
    USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, apple_vendor_id, 0x8206, 0x5d200000 / 2
    USB Device: SoundSticks, 0x05fc  (Harman International), 0x7849, 0x3d100000 / 2
    FireWire Device: built-in_hub, 800mbit_speed
    FireWire Device: unknown_device, unknown_speed

    Yes, I have tried different firewire cables and such.  Removed my firewire hub, tried plugging into the actual ports on the MacPro and plugging in the firewire ports on the back of my Cinema 30 display.  I even bought a new firewire cable just to make sure.  So for now I guess I am going to downgrade my MacMini to Snow Leopard and use that machine to do video capture.
    So last night I removed the primary harddrive from the MacPro.  I installed a new 1TB harddrive. Formatted that drive and did a clean install of Mountain Lion and ran all software updates.  Crashes when I plugin my firewire cameras with no other software but the OS.
    So then I reformatted the drive and did a clean install of Lion and did all software updates.  Still crashes.
    I formatted the drive for a third time, this time installing Snow Leopard.  Did all software updates.  Plugged in my cameras one at a time and no crash.  I installed iLife '11 and was able to video capture with iMovie via the firewire port.
    I am pretty convinced that my hardware (at least) is in working order, otherwise it would have crashed with Snow Leopard also (correct me if my conclusion is incorrect).  So I am inclined to agree with you that I may have triggered a bug in the OS.
    Thank you for your insights.  How do I go about reporting this issue to the Apple Software Engineers?

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