I currently have a functional SD cable DVR setup that I am most pleased with, the only thing that would make it better is if it was HD quality. Assuming I can record HD quality content (which I will get to later) the way to display it is ideally with an DVI (video card) to HDMI (TV) cable. The concern I have is actually recording the content from the HD service. I currently have Cox and would assume that I need to get a cable box (8300HD).

What output can I use from the box to record the HD signals? I currently have 2x PVR-150 cards which I don't think can record HD. I have heard about people recording HD via firewire, but there is no guarantee that I will get the HD signals since the firewire output from the cable provider's box is probably still encrypted correct? Even if I could get the HD signal via firewire, that would put quite a load on the system correct, especially if I wanted to be able to record 2 things at once!

I don't know this for sure but if the dual firewire outputs stream all the unencrypted HD content I need what kind of system would I need to record 2 HD signals at the same time, it would have to be a pretty fast system right?

To my knowledge, you cannot use any output on a digital STB to record HD.

I'm not aware of any cable company that hasn't crippled firewire to let you record HDTV signals. There aren't any component cable recorders (unless you wanna spend several thousand dollars), so you're stuck either downgrading to SD or using QAM. Or buying a Tivo Series 3 (or Cable company HD DVR).

To that end, you MAY have to subscribe to the digital cable in order to get the "free" QAM HD channels (it varies) and given your setup either get a GOOD CPU (My Athlon 64 3200+ is at 50% CPU recording just on HD channel) or possibly one of those HDHomeRun thingies that work with MythTV.

So I am under the assumption that you currently have "standard" cable (does not require a cable box from your cable company). If that is the case, you may want to look into OTA/QAM options - OTA being what the local stations are broadcasting Over The Air (antenna) and QAM being the unencrypted stations your cable company is passing through on your existing cable (no STB - Set-top-box - required)

I can't comment on the recording from a digital STB as I don't have one. I can tell you that the stations I get OTA (or via QAM) can and are being recorded by my family now, with no need for digital cable or the cable company's STB, using a Fusion HDTV5 Lite tuner in our KnoppMyth backend. Depending on your location you may find you can get enough HDTV content via OTA or QAM.

Hardware requirements for HDTV playback vary greatly, but are greater than those for SDTV. Check the DTV forum for issues/configurations.

This is incorrect.

There are many cable STBs which offer firewire outputs which CAN be recorded by MythTv under "ideal" circumstances. In fact, the FCC requires that cable systems offer firewire-equipped boxes to any (hidef) customer who requests it.

The trouble is, as the original poster mentions, the output is encrypted for any content that is considered "premium" (basically anything not available free over the air).

The recording of HD shows is not very demanding at all. The output of the cable box is already an MPEG2 encoded stream -- all the Myth box needs to do is save the bits on a disk. The real heavy processing comes when you watch the HD program.

Software decoding of the MPEG2 "transport stream" (the format used for HD) still yields the best quality. But it is expensive in processor power. I use a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 w/hyperthreading and it plays 1080i content very well. Athlons seem less well suited for the decoding task for some reason and need a little more help (in clock speed) for this task.

Hardware assisted decoding, a.k.a. XvMC, was too buggy to be useful when I last looked at it, over a year ago. It may be better now -- maybe even good enough for "prime time." If it works, it lowers the demands on your CPU while viewing HD programs.

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Keep in mind that the FCC law is only for ONE cable box. There is NO mandate that says they must provide firewire for HD boxes or HD DVR boxes. They only have to have ONE MODEL out of their entire lineup that can do Firewire. Period. Where I live at, the 8300HD unit has an active firewire, but it will NOT output any HD content. Regardless of whether it's "unencrypted" or not. It downgrades all output to SD.

Even under the best of cirsumstances I wouldn't be able to record Discovery HD theater (or other premium HD channels), so that would wouldn't be good enough. Its probably better to pay the $20/month for the HD DVR, especially if I can use an external SATA hard disk to bump up the capacity of the 8300HD

Actually, the FCC DOES mandate that the cable co. has to provide AT LEAST one model of HD cable box which has a firewire output. And it sounds as though your cable company complies with the mandate -- the 8300HD model is, I presume, HD.

Your actual complaint is that the output from the firewire port is downgraded to SD resolution (even for HD sources?) which is NOT permitted according to the FCC mandate. For those stations available in HD over-the-air, the firewire port is to provide the full resolution MPEG2-TS stream. So your cable co. is not in compliance.

Sadly, this state of affairs is also common.

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Sadly. My cable co. (Comcast) had allowed everything to output via firewire, so I could (and often did) record anything, including HD. Unfortunately, just recently our ABC and NBC HD signals are now encrypted (something in the signal causes the cable box (DCT-6200) to block output to the firewire port...only on those two channels...all the rest of the HD channels still output via firewire). I've been doing some research on this subject and it is difficult at best to understand the FCC mandates. There's lots of wiggle room and I'm not even sure if Comcast is the problem. From what I've read so far, the broadcasters are the ones encoding the HD signal so that the cable box cuts off the firewire port.

-sTv

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R7.3 Backend
CPU: 1.8 GHz
RAM: 2Gb
Drives: 500Gb IDE; IDE DVD-RW
Mobo: eMachines
Tuners (Analog): PVR-250
Tuners (Digital): DCT-6200 Motorola Cable Box, HDHomeRun (OTA + cable)

I might be wrong (a frequent enough occurance) but I think your cable co. is doing this. Perhaps the EFF would like to know which areas are blocking free-to-air signals. I know they are proponents of MythTv and of homebrew PVRs in general. I suggest people donate to EFF to further our cause. http://www.eff.org

Here is EFF's page to file a complaint for this flagrant violation of your constitutional rights!

http://www.eff.org/IP/pnp/filecomplaint.php

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Thanks, Liv2cod. A Curious Observation:
I got Comcast to send a technician to my house last Thurs to see the problem with those two HD channels. He, of course, could do nothing. He volunteered to push the problem up to Maintenance, then he left. I called Comcast the next day to follow-up, and they, of course, promised to call me back.
They never called, so I called today. Same promise. However, the Curious Observation: I was on hold with Comcast as they checked, so I pulled up the diagnostics screen on the cable box that shows the status of the copy-protection. Channel 803 (ABC-HD) is still copy-protected (CCI=0x02 and RC=0x01). Channeld 806 (NBC-HD) is not (CCI=0x00 and RC=0x00)!

See these pics from the diagnostic screens of my DCT-6200:
https://webdrive.service.emory.edu/users/rkaraff/www/MythTVpix

I'm not sure what happened, so I'll wait to see what Comcast comes up with.

-sTv

_________________
R7.3 Backend
CPU: 1.8 GHz
RAM: 2Gb
Drives: 500Gb IDE; IDE DVD-RW
Mobo: eMachines
Tuners (Analog): PVR-250
Tuners (Digital): DCT-6200 Motorola Cable Box, HDHomeRun (OTA + cable)

About the firewire port, you guys may find this interesting:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Fi ... egulations

Here's the important part:

(4) Cable operators shall:

(i) Effective April 1, 2004, upon request of a customer, replace any leased high definition set-top box, which does not include a functional IEEE 1394 interface, with one that includes a functional IEEE 1394 interface or upgrade the customer's set-top box by download or other means to ensure that the IEEE 1394 interface is functional.

(emphasis mine)

So that disproves this statement:

I stand corrected, although their appears to be ambiguity about "functional". Functional like you can hook "something" up to it? Or functional in that anything other than broadcast locals is prohibited from being copied/transferred.

I wonder if my local TW has changed their tune because it used to be that if they came and "hooked up" your Digital STB and if you wanted to hook anything other than a TV up via Firewire, they would refuse to let you have the box (ie, you couldn't have them hook it up to a computer, a DVR, any sort of recording device, etc).