Purpose of USB Port on Digital Cable Box

[Buck Turgidson]

I have a digital cable box similar to the one shown on the link. It has a
USB port on the front. However, the instructions are very vague as to its
purpose. It says "connects to external equipment such as a keyboard,
external modem or similar equipment".

What I really want to do is capture the signal on this box, and since I have
an ethernet port next to it, send the signal to a PC in another part of the
house.

Thanks for any input.

http://www.scientificatlanta.com/products/consumers/new_explorer2200.htm

[Richard Crowley]

"Buck Turgidson" wrote ...

You would likely get better results posting your question in
a forum where cable/satellite equipment is discussed. This
newsgroup is chartered for discussion of video editing using
computer-based systems.

Note that many of those set-top boxes include things like
USB and even network ports which are not actually
programmed to do anything you might find useful.
And they likely specifically block any attempt to capture
any content (because of DRM, etc.) But there are
"hacks" to many of the popular boxes which allow
things like grabbing programming content, etc.

[Netmask]

"Richard Crowley" <rcro...@xp7rt.net> wrote in message
news:61mrorF...@mid.individual.net...

except for PVR's like the Topfield and Beyonwiz that have either a usb or
Ethernet port specifically designed for exporting mpeg ts files sans drm or
any other 'protection' to your network or computer..

[Don Del Grande]

"Buck Turgidson" <jc...@hotmail.com> wrote:

I have a feeling it's mainly meant to replace the serial port that the
box may (and other boxes do) have in the back, so you can hook up a
PVR and have the PVR send a signal to the box to change the channel
when a particular channel is to be recorded (by using the USB or
old-style serial port, the box can send a signal back to, say, the
TiVo indicating whether or not the change was made - with the "IR
Blaster" method, the TiVo would try to change the channel once, and if
the box didn't read the command correctly, then you recorded something
you didn't want).

However, note that, as stated in another post, "rec.video.desktop"
refers more to "desktop computer video" than to video devices.

-- Don