Vol. 02: HDTV on Your Mac

Build a simple high-definition video recorder and beat the Broadcast Flag. All you need is a $10 antenna, a $175 decoder card, and some free software.

By Erica Sadun

+ Downloads & Extras:

Update

On May 6, 2005, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the broadcast flag In a unanimous decision. You can read more about the decision in EFF's web site.

We're glad that the FCC backed down on their deadline but one of the reasons they did is that people made enough noise about it. We wanted to help make noise as much as we wanted to make our own HD recorder That said, it's still good to have your own HDTV recorder. Who knows what tricks the broadcast industry will be up to? We do know that proponents at the MPAA will ask Congress for authority for the rule. Learn more about the broadcast flag and how you can help at eff.org/broadcastflag/.

+ LINKS

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Find out how to make a non-Mac HDTV viewer/recorder.

Copperbox.com

More info on making a non-Mac HDTV viewer/recorder

Find a Broadcast

Point your browser to Antenna Web to find digital broadcasts in your area.

Find a DVICO Fusion HDTV 3 Gold ATSC Card

The DVICO website lists several vendors.

Download the Software

John Dalgliesh's website has most of the software you'll need.

MMInputFamily Device Drivers

In order to view HDTV, you'll need to install these device drivers.

iTele

iTele is a viewing application that lets you watch your HDTV programs.

MPlayer

Mplayer is a port of the Linux movie-viewing application.

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HDTV Mac through a cable box
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There is another way of recording HDTV on a mac that has been around for a while but, it may not be as accessible or inexpensive as using an antenna.

The FCC passed a regulation requiring all cable companies to provide a firewire port on their cable boxes. You can request one of these from your cable provider for a minimal fee if you do not already have one. Most Macs over the past few years have a built in firewire port or you can at least buy a card for it. You will want at least a 500Mhz Mac and a LOT of drive space.

You will need a few of programs to actually record HDTV. VirtualDVHS, which comes with the firewire SDK that you can get at Apple Developer Connection or you can get an updated version from ninjaMonkey (see links below). You will also need the VideoLan Client from VideoLan.org for playback and if you want to compress/convert the files to quicktime you will need MPEG Streamclip from Squared5.

Create a folder to save your raw files into and drag it onto the DVHS application so the app knows where to save the files. Set Your Firewire channel (I use 1 but it can be 0 or 63 as well). Press record and if the “Bitrate” field starts to change you know you have the right firewire channel.

Once you have recorded it you can open it and play it back using VideoLan. To convert the files for playback in quicktime you can use Squared5’s brilliant video compression app MPEG Streamclip.

Links:
Apple Developers Connection:
http://connect.apple.com/
NinjaMonkeys DVHS:
ftp://rollernet.us/users/sethm/VirtualDVHS.zip
VideoLan:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Squared5:
http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/

Posted by triangleman on June 03, 2005 at 10:56:02 Pacific Time

Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1.

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