1. plug your DV or Digital8 camera into the computer via FireWire.
2. open Final Cut Pro.
3. choose Log and Capture from the File menu.
4. select the Clip Settings and make sure you are capturing Audio+Video and the audio format is Stereo. For best results, simply use the DV NTSC capture and sequence setting presets.
5. use the transport controls in the Log and Capture window to control your camcorder and find the footage you want to capture.
6. mark the start and end of your sequence by either Clicking the Mark In (>|) and Mark Out (|<) buttons, or entering specific timecodes (In and Out) in the timecode fields at the bottom of the window.
7. name the clip in the Label box, or select Prompt and it will prompt you.
8. click the "Clip" button to capture the marked clip.
9. the clip opens in its own window.
   
   at this point, you

could drag your clip onto the browser window and start editing. but we won't get into that here. if you edit, you will have to export a Final Cut Pro movie (which is actually just a QuickTime movie containing the audio tracks and links to the captured and rendered DV files) and open it in Media Cleaner Pro. For faster export, do NOT export a self-contained Final Cut Pro movie.

If you aren't editing and exporting a Final Cut Pro movie, then save your captured clip somewhere. quit Final Cut Pro (command-Q).