low on memory?

ive just upgraded to fcp 5
im on laptop g4, 10.4.2 , 1 Ghz and 512 MB Ram

recently ive got problems with playback when
im connecting an external monitor to my firewire-deck.
major dropouts, the screen and sound gets digital distortion
and very often the screen turns blue and after a while the
picture comes back.

ive change all my setting (that i can think of) to low quality on playback
and no mirror on desktop while playback.

my thoughts is, do i have to buy more RAM? is that going to solve my problem?
or do i have to buy a new computer?
or downgrad to FCP 4 or even 4?

512 MB RAM? Way to low. That is the bare minimum that FCP needs. Better get another 1 GB if you want things to run smoothly.

A low hard drive will also show up as "low memory."

All the drives on a video system have to have at least 10% free space.

Koz

>>major dropouts, the screen and sound gets digital distortion
and very often the screen turns blue and after a while the
picture comes back.<<

Is your monitor ok otherwise? I've seen this in a dodgy television - the problem went away if you pressed on the front panel on the tv - aka - there was a bad connection inside the tv somewhere.