Recording HD TV

[Johnny 44]

I've recently moved to Canada and brought a Panasonic Blu Ray Recorder (DMR-BW500) with me from Australia. It has a DV input (firewire) which, according to the instruction manual can record in either PAL or NTSC. I was considering buying a Shaw cable box with firewire to connect to the Panasonic Blu Ray in order to record TV programmes on the hard drive drive and then edit them and copy on to blu ray or DVD. Does anyone know how the firewire on cable boxes works? I have read that there is some 5c tagging on the cable boxes. There are also some DVD recorders available in the US and Canada that have a DV input at the front. Has anyone tried to connect a cable box to it to record cable TV programmes? The purpose of having this Panasonic Blu Ray Recorder was that it allows me to transfer high definition video recorded on a HD video camera and retain the quality while editing and then transfer on to blu ray disc. It would be useful to be able to record TV programmes on it as well.

[victoriabears]

Here in paranoia land, North America, it is becoming more and more difficult to record programs, and I think you will get only SD anyway.

Most cable boxes do not allow taking the signal and recording it.

[edDV]

I have never even seen a Blu-Ray recorder but here is what the Shaw cable box does.

The IEEE-1394 port has two modes.

1. Per USA FCC, it should pass a full quality MPeg2-TS stream (SD or HD) for local OTA available broadcasts. Beyond that, cable companies may pass or not pass (e.g. 5c block) what they please.

2. In other countries, the port may or may not be disabled.

The hardware only works for MPeg2 (similar to DVHS VCR), not DV.