FCC Requires Firewire on All Cable Boxes

As of April 1st , cable company are required to supply a Firewire - enabled cable boxful to anyone that enquire , as per an FCC interpretation of department 304 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 . What this mean to you is that slow ripping and recording of high-definition television stream is just a phone call to your cable company away — at least those streams that are unencrypted ( broadcast station are ask to stay unencrypted , and while most premium channels are open now , too , they probably wo n’t be for long ) . Not only can you memorialize shows and watch them on your computer , but the Firewire port allows you to teem video recording back to your TV , making the cable box , if nothing else , an super easy way to get a high - quality signal back into your existing A / quintuplet setup .

MacOSXHints has a howto for Apple users with more entropy , but there ’s no reason that , with a little futzing here and there , exploiter of any OS would n’t be capable to take reward of this uncommon consumer protagonism from the FCC . Thanks , Dan !

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