It's important to note that different cable providers have different
policies regarding what channels their boxes output on FireWire. Many
do not output the premium, copy-protected channels, but some do. It's
possible some providers' boxes only output the digital channels and
not the analog (generally those below 100) channels; my box outputs
both.
Just to clarify this point, some cable providers (like mine - Comcast) only make OTA rebroadcasts available unprotected over firewire. The only channels I get over firewire are CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, and PBS. I pay $14 extra per month for this priviledge ($8/month for the box and $6/month for something along the lines of a "digital basic" upgrade).
This is on top of the $9/month I was paying for "basic cable" (Analogue OTA and local access only). As a bonus, I can get ESPNHD, TNTHD, DSCHD, iNHD1, iNHD2, and NESNHD from the S-video output. (None of my HDTV monitors have anything other than VGA/DVI-I inputs).
In addition to the substantial cost of the firewire solution (which I find bearable because I am 100+ miles from the broadcast towers), it is less than perfectly reliable in operation - although I cannot compare it to other HDTV capture solutions.
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