I have been using a Canon DV camera a various versions of PD for about 5 years now. I never was very happy with the capture ability of PD so many years ago I found a free 3rd party capture program that has been fantastic!! It is a very small file that uses little resources and no dropped frames and easy to use. If you camera has firewire I would try it out.
I am not sure if I can post links to 3rd party vendors so do a google search for "WinDV" The site will have a .cz address.
Been using it for years. The web site doesn't say if it works for win7, but its working fine on my system (win7, quadcore).
Land of fieros, North Dakota USA