Recording TV via FireWire SDK

[kingsapo]

Hey all, kind of a vague topic here, but please stay with me. I recently bought a firewire cable for use in connecting my cable box to my Mac, to use the FireWire SDK to capture content from the box. Most channels work great, the only problem is one channel: G4TV HD. I'm sure there's other channels that don't work, but this is the only one I'm really concerned about. The only reason I bought this firewire cable was so I could record & archive "Attack Of The Show", but every time I try to record that channel, two things happen: The FireWire SDK's viewer doesn't show anything (I should say VLC doesn't show anything), and when using the FireWire SDK's capture program, it captures something, because the end file size is like 9GB, but my computer can't make anything of it (VLC can't play it, video converting programs can't do anything with it, etc.).

So I guess my question is, what am I doing wrong? I have heard that certain channels are encrypted, if so, is there any way around that? Maybe there's a program or something that de-crypts encrypted firewire signals? I really have no idea, that's why I'm here!

As usual, any help is appreciated.

 

[Hugh]

Hey all, kind of a vague topic here, but please stay with me. I recently bought a firewire cable for use in connecting my cable box to my Mac, to use the FireWire SDK to capture content from the box. Most channels work great, the only problem is one channel: G4TV HD. I'm sure there's other channels that don't work, but this is the only one I'm really concerned about. The only reason I bought this firewire cable was so I could record & archive "Attack Of The Show", but every time I try to record that channel, two things happen: The FireWire SDK's viewer doesn't show anything (I should say VLC doesn't show anything), and when using the FireWire SDK's capture program, it captures something, because the end file size is like 9GB, but my computer can't make anything of it (VLC can't play it, video converting programs can't do anything with it, etc.).

So I guess my question is, what am I doing wrong? I have heard that certain channels are encrypted, if so, is there any way around that? Maybe there's a program or something that de-crypts encrypted firewire signals? I really have no idea, that's why I'm here!

As usual, any help is appreciated.

It sounds like the channel is encrypted, and asking for a way around it is I think against the rules. You might try to hook up the FIREWIRE to your Sat or cable box to decode the channel. :/

Hugh

 

[kingsapo]

Thanks Hugh, sorry if I didn't make this apparent, but I do currently have the FireWire cable plugged into my cable box. I kinda suspected the channel was encrypted, so I guess I was asking if there was a program that could decode them or something?