Performance question on EyeTV200, MacMini G4, and LaCie Firewire drive

[ChrisG]

Hi there - I'm fairly new to both Macs and Firewire in general, but I hope someone will have the patience to explain things to me.

I have setup a home media system as follows:

G4 MacMini with 512MB RAM, 1 firewire port, 2 usb ports
Elgato EyeTV 200 (Firewire) (PAL TV reception)
LaCie Porsche 250GB Firewire external harddisk
DVI-to-SVIDEO converter - connected directly to my Television's SVideo input

Running 2.2 version, and just updated to the new 2.3 version of EyeTV

Since the MacMini has only one Firewire port, I have setup a daisy-chain of MacMini --> EyeTV200 --> firewire harddisk

The EyeTV is configured to save programs to the firewire harddisk

The problem I seem to be having is that the EyeTV is stuttering a bit in recording the programs. I'm fairly sure it is the recording that is the issue cos if I playback a given sequence repeatedly the stuttering always occurs in exactly the same place.

I am running VNC and SSH on the MacMini so I can remotely administer it.

I am wondering, is it likely there is a bottleneck with both the EyeTV and the harddisk on the same Firewire channel?

What performance monitoring tools can I use to see if there is a bottleneck on the firewire? 'top' shows the CPU is high but not topped-out.

I think my next step might be to format and re-install Mac OS X 10.4 + latest patches, and see if that resolves the issue...

Any advice before I take this drastic step gratefully accepted!