i've been trying to get my TiVo to boot from a toshiba laptop drive since they are so much quieter. unfortunately, it's not gone well so i've been reading a bunch of TiVo sites. one of them pointed to pulling HD video from a cable box.

since i happen to have the motorola dct-6200, and an ADC account, i gave it a try. i didn't see the r18 firewire SDK, so i just tried 19. installed, etc, and it seems to work fine. downloaded the VLC player, and it plays the files fine.

sadly, the firewire SDK software is pretty bare-bones, and isn't very usable for scheduling recordings. a few google searches later revealed iRecord, which can change channels on the cable box and therefore schedule recordings.

i tried to import one of these recordings into iMovie, but it complained that it couldn't read the file. someone on the internet said MPEG Streamclip could convert these files, but that complained that it didn't have the QuickTime MPEG 2 Playback Component, which is easy enough to get.

so, all the pieces are here, but i haven't found a mature one-stop solution yet. looking at what these pieces are (apple mpeg 2 and virtual dvhs software, firewire, and the motorola cable box) makes me wonder if this basically describes the new mac mini. is it just going to use this firewire connection?

while requiring a specific cable box may seem like it restricts the target users too much, they've done similar things before. the first iPods only worked with macs (that had firewire). iSync originally only worked with a few bluetooth phones, and there is only one phone that works with the iTMS (which is made by motorola).

fortunately, macworld expo is a little over a week away, and we'll soon know what's up. that is unless they don't announce it, and it can live on as a rumour for another year.

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