On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 1:58 PM, <beck0778 at umn.edu> wrote: > Apparently there's an FCC ruling that requires cable companies to provide a > firewire-capable set top box if the customer asks for one. Has anyone out > there ever tried using firewire to get content out of a comcast cable box? > Were they willing to provide you with one of these boxes? Were you able to > watch/record any channels on your linux box over firewire? > > --Matthew > Yes, I did in the past. I took me about an hour at their office in St. Paul until the person there understood what I want, going trough hoops that they do not have one, etc. At the end they found a box. It appeared that they did not know what to look for. Also, most of the boxes they found with firewire were actually DVRs, not regular boxes, and they tried to charge me for DVR. Anyway, they found the box (note, you need to printout and show them the FCC ruling, otherwise you may be out of luck). It worked well with MythTV, and I was able to record the off the air (non-encrypted) content. I do not know about others, because I did not pay axtra for the rest of the HD channels. As a summary - the unencrypted channels can be tuned even if you have basic subscription w/o HD at all. So if you need only them you are better with a HD tuner card. Cheers -- Svetoslav Milenov (Sunny) Even the most advanced equipment in the hands of the ignorant is just a pile of scrap.