[swhit321]

I have a DCT6400 hd dvr and plugged it in to my mac mini through firewire. I can't figure out how to explore the drive on the dvr... Anyone know how to fix this so that I can burn some of the files to discs?

[tsantee]

Toast does not work with the TS streams recorded by DVRs. You'll need to use the VirtualDVHS application that is part of Apple's free FirewireSDK21 developers kit to be able to capture any non-protected video from the DVR and then use MPEG Streamclip to convert the TS stream to MPEG for use in Toast.

Generally all but the network stations are copy protected so the video cannot be transferred via Firewire.

There is a HDTV users forum at avsforum.com where you can find instructions on how to use VirtualDVHS.

[swhit321]

then why does toast titanium have dvd video from ts option?

[tsantee]

swhit321, on Dec 11 2006, 06:26 PM, said:

then why does toast titanium have dvd video from ts option?

A VIDEO_TS folder is not the same as the transport streams coming from a DVR. In order to get those off the DVR you play them to your computer using the VirtualDVHS app to do the capturing.

I've done this with some HDTV programs from my Motorola 6412. After being converted to HD MPEG files by Streamclip Toast can encode them to standard definition anamorphic 16:9 video DVDs that retain the 5.1 AC-3 audio. It's very nice although it is time consuming. However, out of my tons of cable channels only my Fox, NBC and CBS channels aren't blocked for this transfer due to 5c copy protection on the other channels. My ABC station shouldn't be, but is.

This brings us to the benefit of having an EyeTV (or similar product) or a standalone DVD recorder. Since they record from the analog output from your 6400 they can record any of the channels to MPEG 2, although any HD 16:9 channels will be recorded as letterbox 4:3 video (that is what is output from the cable box's S-video and composite video).