iBeard said:
I have a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR came with my Time Warner Cable. I have some shows recorded that I want to transfer to my MacBook and edit, convert and watch/put on my iPod. The only way I've read that you can get recorded shows off a Scientific Atlanta box is by selecting "Record to VCR" and then hooking up some Composite/S-Video and recording it in analog. So I need a converter of some sort that has analog in and USB/FireWire out.
What is the cheapest solution to my problem?
Thanks.
Probably not the cheapest, but it should work. Any miniDV camcorder with Analog-to-Digital conversion. You'll need plenty of hard drive space as DV footage is not heavily compressed.
EDIT -- Wait a minute. Does the SA DVR box have a Firewire port? If it does, you may be able to use your Mac to record from the SA box with the help of Virtual D-VHS (or something like that). I think most people use it to record live HDTV or cable. It might work with recorded stuff on the DVR hard drive. All you would need is a Firewire cable.
Then you would play it back with VLC and could maybe convert it to some other format.
ft