[JustinD]

Hey guys,

In the interest of saving desk space I'm looking for a PCI card - I know there are external units that do this (El Gato's to think of one) but that would be another piece of equipment on my desk...

I have Time Warner digital cable, and subscribe to a few HDTV channels. As such I have the HDTV cable box hooked up to my TV via component cables.

Is there a PCI card I could get for a PowerMac G5 that would let me hook up the HDTV box and view regular cable, along with HDTV programs to the G5? I believe that when you're viewing an HDTV channel the box automatically switches to component output, so having those inputs on the card is necessary.

Looking to spend an acceptable amount, like under $600.

Any ideas?

[tooki]

One option is to cash in on the federal requirement that all digital cable operators provide cable boxes with FireWire outputs. Then you can use this piece of software that lets you stream the HD video from the box to your Mac.

I don't remember the name of the software, maybe someone else can fill it in.

tooki

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by tooki

I don't remember the name of the software, maybe someone else can fill it in.

I use the version of AVCBrowser from here:
http://macpvr.home.comcast.net/
It's modified from the developer example of AVCBrowser in the Apple firewire SDK. I further modified to to remove interface elements I don't use, and to make it accept command line arguments for channel changing and timed recording, so I can use applescripts to launch it and iCal to schedule it.

I don't believe there are any PCI cards that support both HDTV and OS X, but Miglia makes an SD PCI card that I liked very much before I upgraded to HDTV. The only HDTV solution I know of for Mac is EyeTV's HDTV version.