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  1. I've been using my comcast dvr to record airings. in the past i used irecord or apples firewire sdk to bring the comcast airings into my mac. However now when i record with either i get file si can no longer convert in mpegstreamclip.. either with back breaks or bad transport.

    anything i might do to resolve this? i've tried 2 separate computers and no luck. different fw cables as well.

    it will record the whole airing and come back with bad breaks or bad transport.. and mpeg streamclip is the only app that can convert these m2t files
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  2. Member terryj's Avatar
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    when's the last time you did some maintenance on that FW drive?
    if your getting BAD TRANSPORT, it could be pointing to
    bad sectors that need repairing on the FW drive.

    What brand of drive is it?
    Try this:
    Use Apple's Disc Utility to check the state of the drive.
    If you get a lot of Volume Header or B-Tree nodes
    popup, it would be best to try and erase the drive,
    and re-format, to get it back to a healthy shape,
    as it is heavily de-fragged.
    "Everyone has to learn, so that they can one day teach."
    ------------------------------------------------------
    When I'm not here, Where can I be found?
    Urban Mac User
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  3. Member
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    Actually if you are recording a channel that is not free-to-air (i.e., not your local PBS, ABC, Fox, etc), welcome to 5C copy protection!

    If you use FireWire SDK21, your capture application will now tell you which content is "copy freely" and which content is "copy once." All copy once content requires a 5C compliant device to play back the transport streams. Currently the only 5C compliant devices I know of are the set top DVR boxes from Comcast and my JVC D-VHS recorder. Apple computers are not 5C compliant (yet).

    The way I get around this is to archive 5C content (HBO, Showtime, etc) to D-VHS, and other stuff I downconvert through the D-VHS machine direct to DVD. Expensive workarounds for some, but it fit my budget.

    Be warned though ... the standard definition content and the digital channels are also protected by some form of Macrovision now so you'll have to get a filter to defeat that as well.

    So, Macrovision filter was like $80; D-VHS machine refurbished ran me about $300. DVHS tapes are about $6 in lots of 10. Settop DVD recorder cost about $200 (but I wanna sell it, any buyers??) and cabling another $20-$30.
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  4. Member terryj's Avatar
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    WHOA!!!

    no wonder I'm still at basic analog cable 2 Canopus 2 Mac...


    I'd like to go all FW from incoming signal to mac, but
    your right Ant, that is an expensive option
    ( but I bet the quality is superb)!
    "Everyone has to learn, so that they can one day teach."
    ------------------------------------------------------
    When I'm not here, Where can I be found?
    Urban Mac User
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  5. whats interesting is all the posts i'm finding about 5c are from last year.. i was able to use the Firewire SDK to convert my comcast stuff in Feburary. So unless this changed recently there shouldn't a reason for it to have stopped working.

    i have a recording from 1-22-06 that i converted. a Lakers game off my league pass.. and now when i use irecord and put the file into mpeg streamclip i get the error "file error: unsupport file type"

    any thoughts? is this still 5c? or soemthing else?
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  6. Member
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    Silver Spring, MD USA
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    It took quite awhile for my county's Comcast to switch content over to 5c. i too learned about it early last year and I was still getting content in the clear so I thought people were full of BS. And then one day, boom, everything was encrypted. No warning.

    Use AVCVideoCap from SDK21 and just run a few seconds of a non-local channel (anything in the upper digital tier like Showtime, or InHD, or even MTV Hits) and you'll see that content is "copy once" .. meaning it will copy to your hard drive, but it won't play back unless your software/hardware is 5c compliant.

    As I stated earlier, local, over the air channels like your local Fox station is not encrypted (including their ATSC digital versions) so you can still copy Lost and Desperate Housewives.
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  7. Member
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    Eugene, Oregon
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    I've never tried irecord, but with the VirtualDVHS from the SDK I can only record the analog and network HD channels from my Comcast DVR. I know this is the 5c protection (I'm just trying to add some more clarification here). What happens with the other channels is nothing gets recorded. The time-elapsed counter doesn't tick off and nothing is written to the hard drive. What confuses me about your post is you say you do have content but can't play it. Unless irecord is different from VirtualDVHS in this way I don't know why you have anything recorded to your hard drive if it was a 5c-protected channel. In any case, choose a Network HD channel and it should work. There's a way to check the 5c flag on each channel but I have to do some research to find those instructions again.
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  8. Member
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    Use the AVCVideoCap application instead.
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