I shot some 1080i video on my HVR-Z1J (Japanese equivalent of the Z1U) and upon importing it into both FCP7 and FCPX I am getting tearing on any kind of movement of the camera. The piece was shot handheld so this is indeed a problem. I'm assuming the is a progressive scan/drop frame/deinterlace problem but don't know much about this stuff. On the monitor on the cam the stuff plays back beautifully. How do I import it into FCP (either one) and keep it looking that good? Please help as I need to get this camera back soon.

It sounds like a codec problem - what version of FCP are you running? I am guessing the imported footage is fine, you're just not able to play it back correctly. One suggestion to test this is to download VLC Player (free here VideoLAN - VLC: Official site - Free multimedia solutions for all OS! (http://videolan.org/) ) and play some of the imported clips from your hard drive with that to see if they play normally.

OK, that seems like a really concrete way to check it and I have VLC! Thank you. Seems to be doing this with both FCP7 and FCPX. Any other thoughts? I'll check back and let you know what I find.