HDTV cards and set-top boxes for Mac: whats current?

[rotuts]

Hello

hope this is an OK topic here

whats currrent for the Mac in true HDTV cards and set-top boxes? Im aware of the ElGato Eye TV 500 box for G5's, and today while looking for deals at Fry's electronics they had a HDTV card for PC from I think ATI for $175

are there cards yet for the Mac? Im thinking about this as i have an AlchemyDVR card for my G4 and am pleased with it.

if wrong forum, can you direct me to one?

thanks rotut

[live4ever]

Check out these sites:
http://www.defyne.org/dvb/driver.html
http://www.htmug.com/phpBB2/index.php

There's not much officially supported, but if you do have a STB with Firewire out you could use the OS X Firewire SDK Virtual DVHS to record the signal to HDD.
http://macteens.com/print.php?id=410_0_1_0

[AntnyMD]

I can't speak to HDTV cards for PowerMac but a great alternative for iBooks and Powerbooks with FireWire and Panther is the Virtual DVHS (http://developer.apple.com/sdk/#FireWireX) application mentioned above.

Virtual DVHS and its companion programs DVHSCap and AVS Browser, allow you to capture high definition television in real time. I currently use a Motorola DCT6208 cable box from Comcast and a PowerBook Titanium 667. Capture rates are about 8 to 9 gigs an hour.

Since you have to use both AVS Browser and Virtual DVHS in a certain order for the capture process to work, this pdf (http://mac_hdtv_timer.home.comcast.net/Manual_6200.pdf) and this thread at AVS Forums (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=386740&perpage=20) are essential reading.

Currently on my system, I can capture the high definition channels fine .. but the regular cable channels (MTV, etc) don't save in a format thats understood by VLC or MPEG Streamclip. My system is too slow to play back the content smoothly, so my goal is to capture content for archiving and conversion.

Problem #1 is that the only free application I can find to handle MPEG transport streams is MPEG Streamclip. This application does not properly decode the audio from any of my high def captures except for one, the PBS high def feed. The audio from the others stutter. On the G5 at work, all captuers, including INHD and HBO etc play fine in VLC so I know they're not damaged. MPEG Streamclip's web page says the software will be updated to address this problem.

Problem #2: So far I have had little luck in converting the files with ffmpegX. For all the channels whose audio MPEG Streamclip cannot yet handle, a conversion to Xvid yields a stunning picture -- but no audio.