I'm trying to get the WAF (wife acceptance factor) passed. I am using Time Warner (now Comast) here in Houston. I have the Motorola 6200 via firewire connected to master backend. Everything works fine, channel changing, HBO, HBO HD, some HD channels (except those with 5C encryption).

When I am on a digital channel (not HD) like anything above channel 100 I get a great SD signal. When I get to the movie channels, still great quality records. HD recordings are also excellent. When I get to what we watch the most (ABC, NBC, CSB, Fox, TNT, History, Comedy Channel, Sci-Fi, Discovery) they are all analog channels. The records are fuzzier than normal, or more snowy. I ran this test also in Windows. I was able to record off of firewire to a file in MS Windows so I could make sure it just wasn't the OS. The quality is worse than if I just plugged the cable directly to the TV and watched it. What's up with that??? I also plugged it to my Tivo, and the quality is practically the same as watching it from the TV with the coaxial plugged directly to the back of the TV.

WHAT'S GOING ON?? Can anyone explain? Is there something I can do on the Linux OS side that I can use to tweak the image to clean it up? Or, should I just pipe the signal to a capture card?

Also, if I wanted to capture HD, should I stick with the firewire (I don't get some HD channels that are 5C encrypted) , use AT&T U-verse, Dish Network, or regular OTA capture card?