Ripping recorded video from a Cox DVR on OS X
Sometimes some of the most entertaining TV you’ll see can come from your local news – especially if you live in Arkansas it seems. And so was the case last Tuesday night. But more about that later. First let’s talk about getting the recorded program off of the DVR so we share it with the world, as was my mission this morning weekend. After much Googling and forum reading, this is what I found out. We have a Motorola DCT6412 III that we rent from the Cox cartel. After alot of reading on the forums at http://www.avsforums.com (especially this thread), it looked like I was out of luck on getting the recorded news clip off of the DVR and onto my Mac. Then I found this thread which laid out the plan that eventually worked. I’m putting everything I gleaned from the AVS Forums here so maybe someone else can use it and so I can remember just how I did it in the first place. Here’s what you need:
- The Apple FireWire SDK for OSX (version 26 as of this writing), a quick and easy install – FREE.
- VLC Viewer to view the stream and transcode it to another more usable format (such as MPEG-4) if you want – FREE.
- A FireWire 400 cable to connect your Mac to the DVR – NOT FREE, but I had one lying around.
And here are some other things you may need:
- HandBrake (which you should have anyway, regardless of your platform – it’s great for ripping movies from DVD to mpeg-4 – FREE.
- IMovie HD – I had to use this to ultimately clip out just the part of the newscast that I wanted – comes with your Mac.
First, connect the FireWire cable to your Mac (I had both the Mac and DVR powered up, others talked about powering then down first). Fire up AVCVideoCap.app in the FireWire SDK at /Developer/FireWireSDK26/Applications and get it set and ready to record, but don’t start the recording yet. From your DVR, bring up the previously recorded program, and if you can, rewind to a minute or so before where you want to transfer, then pause the DVR. Now plug the FireWire cable into your DVR, and the program should start back up on your TV. Now start recording in AVCVideoCap, which will apparently “pause” the playback on your TV. Hit the play button on your DVR remote, which will “unpause” the playback on the DVR and output both video and audio to the .m2t filestream in AVCVideoCap. Note that when you hit play, it will not unpause what you see, just what gets output, so your TV is essentially unwatchable while transferring the video.
AVCVideoCap captures the video from the DVR to a .m2t filestream, which is basically MPEG-2. Out of the box QuickTime and IMovie don’t like m2t streams, but VLC Player does. VLC will play the m2t and you can export to mp4 (MPEG-4), which pretty much any video player will like. However, I had lots of problems in VLC just trying to go directly from the m2t stream to a mp4 – the video and audio were all jacked up when I tried that direct export in VLC. I read somewhere to try HandBrake, but it also did not like my m2t stream. After many attempts at different exports, this worked in VLC:
- Video codec: H.264 / Bitrate: 2048
- Audio codec: MPEG Audio / Bitrate 192
- Encapsulation format: MPEG TS (.ts)
This gave me a .ts stream which HandBrake would now open and convert to a mp4, which I imported into IMovie HD and clipped out just the news story I wanted. I exported from IMovie at Full Quality to mp4, and got a fairly good quality mp4 that I could then upload to YouTube or put on my Ipod. Now, this raises the question, especially with my wife, of “Is all that work, really worth it?” Maybe not. But it got to the point where I knew this could be done and just had to figure it out. Plus I have this little gem now:
Yes, there are still 365 days in a year.
Is there any possible way to do this with a PC running Windows Vista? I have the firewire that is needed, and I have tried at least 15 different ways of transfer recorded files, but all I have come up with is how to record live tv to the PC.
Any help would be appreciated!
I found this for XP the other day:
http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/
maybe something in there could help. Other than that, I would suggest lots of Googling, which is what I did. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
Thanks for the site
My roommate and I were just trying to do this the other night, but were having issues…
What version of OSX are you running? Did you have any “Could not open file” issues trying to run the AVC capture program?
Thanks!
Alex, I’m running Leopard 10.5.6. I never had any “Could not open..” issues though.
Hey Chad, I’ve followed what you said step by step and I seem to use the filestream program correctly but when I try to play it in VLC nothing happens. Any ideas?
JC, elaborate on “..nothing happens” please. So you got your stream off the DVR but then VLC won’t recognize it?
Chad I’m not entirely sure how you’ve done this seeing as how if you disconnect the firewire the device won’t show up, so how do you ‘get ready’ to record. I’m using SDK26 as well and have tried SDK25 and mine will always say cannot open device. I have used SDK25 before when I had Comcast and that worked on a different DVR. But So far on my 6416, so far I haven’t had much luck and am thinking that I will have to take out the hard drive to get the info. Does using Leopard make a difference?
@Jason: You never disconnect the firewire cable. First, plug the FW into your Mac, fire up AVCVideoCap, bring up the program on your DVR, then plug the FW cable into your DVR, then start recording in AVCVideoCap. Not sure if Leopard v. Tiger makes a difference or not. HTH.
@JC: The “nothing happens” occurs because of the content protection on the recording. When you plug in the firewire to the DVR and your computer with AVCVideoCap on, look at the EMI: line at the bottom. If you’re allowed to copy the file it will say ‘Copy Freely’, and these recordings will play in VLC. If you see ‘Copy Once’ then the capture will not work. This was my experience on a DCT6412/2005 model.
I can capture “something” from my Cox Santa Barbara SA8300 using my 10.5.6 OSX MacBook and AVCVideocap; the capture file fills up at a rate of about 40 MBytes/min. But I can’t get any utility to display what is captured; VLC will open the file, but when I attempt to play it, it appears to just whiz through it, while displaying nothing. Could it be that the stream is encrypted? What clues could I look for? Thanks. (April 2009)
Thanks for this very succinct description of how to get a DVR to the Mac. I got it all the way through to Handbrake. I used your specific VLC setting to .ts, but when I attempt to open the file in Handbrake, it says no valid source found. I’ll try different settings in VLC, but if you had a suggestion, I’d love to hear it.
More info. I have a motorola dch3416. When I was capturing, when I plugged in the Firewire (800 to 400 as I’m using a new Mac Mini) the picture went 2x forward, not pause. After I set the AVC and pressed play, the picture was 1x forward, so I was able to watch while the capture occurred.
I captured two files, the second said scanning title 1 of 1 for a second, then No Valid Source Found, like the first.
Also getting the “Could not open” error in AVCVideocap. Macbook with 10.4.11. Any suggestions?
Thanks for the useful info. It’s so interesting
@Jim K: Is it protected content, i.e., something from a premium channel? If it came from a network like ABC/CBS, you should be able to open it, but something from HBO won’t work, as the content is encrypted.
I see the device. It looks like AVCVideocap is recording, but I get nothing in VLC. It complaints that there is no valid video or audio codec
Any idea?
Chad, you rock! I had the pausing problem when trying to get recorded content from the DVR and struggled to find a solution. The method of tricking the DVR into playing, that you described above, worked well.
I am trying to use MPEG Streamclip to convert the .m2t file to .mov, but the playback and conversion are missing the video component. I do have the QuickTime MPEG2 Playback component installed ($20 from QT) but to no avail. Do you have any experience with this?
ClipWrap is another application that can be used to convert .m2t to .mov, and I tested it successfully with their 1-min trial version. Their full version costs $50 and is more limited than MPEG Streamclip so I am trying to make the latter work.
Thanks for sharing your method.