FCP: Using "Capture now" as a DTE recorder
 

Has anyone experienced any issues (other than hard disk space) capturing 6+ hours of video using "Capture Now" direct from a DV camera?

Never tried that. A couple days ago we were shooting some video with our guest Italian videographer. He was capturing HDV directly to a new MacBook Pro from my Sony Z1. It all worked fine for awhile, but after a few hours of on and off capturing, FCP just refused to capture more than a few seconds at a time. Very strange, we've never seen that before.

If you're shooting standard definition you might have a look at BTV Pro:

http://www.bensoftware.com/btvpro.html

Got 3 hours continuous, no probs...
 

Hmmm.

I've had nary a hiccup with short bursts of recording (10 mins max), but worried that one would hit some sort of glass ceiling.

Just stopped a 3 hour recording (39.22 Gb) and it's all there. Quick to whip through it. Standard DV quality. Nothing missing that I can tell.

Only downside was that, whilst I could record to tape at the same time (even record HDV whilst outputting DV 4:3 to disk, which is cool), if I ejected the tape, the sound momentarily blanks out. Just as it does on the headphone socket. Every time I'd change tapes, I'd loose sound.

A shame, but I guess that's how the Z1 works. I guess it means hanging a deck of the S-Video.

BTVPro looks a little hairy (May 2002) - not exactly a Cocoa app, is it? :) I think I feel safer with FCP 5.1.2 to my LaCie 300 Triple via FW800. IIRC, Apple did not advocate recording to PowerBook internal disks due to performance problems, and I would concur.

I've been experimenting with this using my XL2 in this way. In particular, I have found that the advanced pulldown removal feature of Final Cut Pro is very useful in conforming 24P video from the camera to a 23.98 timeline.

I'd watch your disk space carefully. The comment above regarding FCP's behavior (inexplicably refusing to capture any more video) sounds an awful lot like either a disk space issue or a preferences setting. Maybe FCP is careful to make sure that there's always 2X the amount of disk space free because it might have to copy video files? No idea. I've never seen that.

I've had success using Capture Now with the G4 PowerBook and an external FW800 Lacie. I once did three full days of shooting that way, albeit it was stop/start in 10-15 minute chunks. I always had a tape in the camera for backups.

When using this capture method I also found the waveform monitor very useful.