I have a 24" imac and canon xh-a1 camera using hdv and apple pro res presets, and when I try to use color it seems to work really slow and it doesnt operate to well, is this normal or do I need to upgrade my computer or something like that?

Not enough info here. What do you mean slow? Is color unresponsive? Does it render out and send back to FCP?

-C

Slow like slow speed and it doest play back footage nicely it always skips, yes it will put footage back to fcp but also when I try and play it there it usually wont play real time and drops frames

Sounds like your hd might not be able to playback full res. A good test would be to change the outgoing codec from color to see if it plays.

Also, check the white paper from Pro-Res - maybe your computer isn't fast enough somehow.
-C