You might be able to find something out by reading this thread on the AVS forum, but be aware that IME, about 80% of the people on AVS don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

I was able to get a little bit of video off of my box, but only for the network channels (scrambled cable channels wouldn't work), and I didn't think it was worth the effort.

Thanks, Tom. That's been my main resource thus far. I didn't know about the 80% rule, though it stands to reason.

It's tantalizingly like it's just about to work if I can just tweak it a bit, so I will keep at it a bit more. Actually, I got it to work once yesterday, but have been unable to duplicate.

Hey -t, have you looked at the Elgato products: [link] It comes with EyeTV software that turns your Mac into a DVR. I believe they all come with a break out cable so you can do either component (3x RCA connections for Audio L/R + Video) or RF. It will show your unscrambled cable channels via RF, or what ever your cable box is putting out via component. I've been playing with it for about a week now. A co-worker lent me her old unit. I'm loving how easy it is. It's one click "export to iPod", then it shows up in your iTunes for sync.

I think you mean composite video, not component. Component should have 5 RCA connectors. 3 Video and LR Audio.

oops. Yup. Glad I specified what I meant. Brain already on vacation. Whheeeeeee!

People make that mistake all the time.

I've got EyeTV and it is fantastic. I'm currently using a dual tuner HDHomerun for the Clear QAM channels, an EyeTV250 for analog channels (basic cable? I am unclear on exactly what is what, really). I've also got the Comcast provided dual tuner DVR for encrypted channels, but I fill up the hard drive faster than I can get the shows watched (I'm behind in everything and it's the newest episodes that go onto the DVR, of course, but I am the sort of TV watcher that must watch everything in order (having the capability to record 5 different things at once does not help with this compulsion, ftr)), so I'm trying to find a way to archive the digital HD shows off of the DVR until I can catch up.

I updated VLC to the latest version and iRecord to the prerelease beta and I got it to record short test videos just fine. if it continues to work with an actual full-length episode I will be very happy.

Hey, has anyone successfully gotten video off of a cable box via firewire? Or unsuccessfully, for that matter. I'm trying to figure it out

I made it work once with my Scientific Atlanta, but I've actually forgotten how I did it. It worked nicely, though, back then.

This post was brought to you by the bureau of incredibly unhelpful comments. For our next trick, we will teach students to spend as much time as possible yelling "SHUT UP SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO LEARN!" back and forth at each other in order to improve the lives of high school teachers everywhere.

That is actually heartening to read. Unless you are part of the vast conspiracy bent on making me waste my time pursuing an impossibility. And if you are, tell everyone at the meeting that it's really not necessary, I will find other useless things on which to waste my time.

Still have not completed a successful full episode test, but I think I am learning from my mistakes.

Help w/iTunes, please?? I was starting it up, and importing my library or whatever was taking forever, so I said stop. Got an error message about something not being a valid library file or something. Opened iTunes, and most of my songs and all of my playlists are gone. I closed it down and restarted, same thing. What do I do? Did I just break it?

Augh!