Note: only tested and verified on Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard". There has been a report of loss of iSight camera function after installing the Apple FireWire SDK version 2.6 and running AVCBrowser on Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger".
This is not supported - please do not contact Cornhusker Tech with questions about the procedures on this page! Proceed at your own risk.
1. Download and install VLC from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html.
2. Download and install the Apple FireWire SDK (current version is 2.6 at time of writing).
3. Connect your cable box to your Mac via FireWire and power it on.
4. Open the AVCBrowser application from (Hard Drive):Developer:Applications:FireWireSDK Applications.
5. Click on your device and click Open Device-Control Panel.
6. Click the Panel tab and then click the Open Device button.
7. Click Start Viewer. The video stream should load in VLC. If your device supports it, you can also change the channel using the panel in the AVCBrowser window. (Hint: you may want to press Cmd+0 or Cmd+3 to resize the video window to a smaller format to fit your screen)
8. To record from digital cable, run the application AVCVideoCap from (Hard Drive):Developer:Applications:FireWireSDK Applications. Click on your device, click on "Capture From Device", select a location to save to and a name for the saved recording, and click Save. Then choose how long to record for and when to start recording (optional). If your box supports it, you can also enter a channel to record from. Enjoy!
