dropped frames and tape freezing on log and capture

I have, understandably, a dinosaur FCP (4) but, for some reason in the log and capture, the tape is freezing. It plays fine until I press "now" to log and capture. Then it freezes. The message says "dropped frames detected" I turned that off in the user preferences and now it simply stops.

Do you know what this might be attributed to?

I have - also - an old Mac G4. Am trying to send the capture to an external hard drive with a lot of disk space as my old Mac needs to be cleaned up. Could this be the problem?

appreciate the help!

StephV

What format are you capturing? Are you using firewire or a capture card? The usual issue is that you are trying to capture at a data rate some component of your system can't handle.

The gurus around here will probably also want to know some system details. In addition to the type of machine, a G4 you mentioned, but a laptop or a dual processor tower? You noted Final Cut 4, but better would be the actual version number from the about screen. Also while you are about it the version number of your operating system, and quicktime would be really useful as well.