IMovie HD 6: HD Capture Recommendation

Question

I have discovered that Macbooks and Macbook Pros are both terrible at capturing HD video from a Canon Vixia HV30. Over three years of attempts and compromises, even seeing a temporary improvement by downgrading iMovie 6.0.3 back to 6.0, I have completely abandoned HD capture with my portable/laptop Macintosh computers.
My fix: pick up a dual PowerMac G5 system. This model is capable of capturing the immense HD data stream in REAL TIME. The Macbook and macbookpro both dropped regularly to as slow as 1/8 speed capture, making any large projects impossible.
The 2.0Ghz Powermac G5 I am currently using must simply be better at transcoding the HD stream into the preferred format by iMovie (whatever that may be, I just know that it needs to capture in one format, and then convert it to another).
This system can be had for as little as $200 used off of eBay.

Answer 1

Well I own 2 HV30's and an hv40 and both capture just find in a macbook pro. I use 4GB ram memory and make sure that i at least have 25 gb or more of Hard drive space available. NO other cables connected, Canon does not like other cables connected. I really usually have at least 119GB of free space then capture in real time one hour of video at a time from the HV30 then once done i will move it over to an external hard drive to work in imovie HD 6