Multiclip Playback Dropped Frames

I am MultiClip editing 3 ProRes streams and getting the dreaded "RT....Dropped Frames" message every 5-10 seconds. Have followed the standard protocol (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11226192) for this and problem continues.
Details:
-24" iMac 4GB Ram w/ plenty of HD space
-Clips were logged/transferred onto iMac HD (no external)
-Completed 2.5 hour multiclip last week, 3 streams, with only a handful of dropped frames issues
-Current project has been tried on 2 identical iMacs and a new fully loaded MacBook Pro and the issue is the same on all 3 machines.
Have read Shane Ross post/response at:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11226192
Questions for Shane and Other Experts:
Is it likely that because my iMac HD is Journaled, I should be using an external?
Is this problem a playback issue or a capture issue?
What do you advise? Please help!
Thanks!
S. Brown

Shane's rule #1
1) Do not capture to your main system drive.
That drive has enough to do just operating the OS and FCP...then you expect it to perpetually read 3 streams of media?
It may work for awhile, but as you're finding out, things eventually bog down.
Get an external.
Journaling may slow things very slightly, but you should have your system drive journaled...(but not necessary on an external)
It's only a capture issue if your media format doesn't match your sequence settings. This sounds like a throughput issue.

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Here are some screen caps of the item info windows:
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/1696/screenshot20100608at115.png
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/1696/screenshot20100608at115.png
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