EyeTV 2.1 goes Universal

Blake...not neccesarily. The EyeTV 500 will do NONE of the the things the guy in the first post asked. It in no way takes control of your digital cable box.

The EyeTV 500 does two things: It recieves Clear QAM, un-encrypted digital cable channels without the need of the cable box. This can rage from several HDTV channels to hundeds of digital music chanels. It depends on what Clear QAM data your cable company is pushing over the line. It also recieves OTA digital ATSC broadcasts, this requires an antenna and some patience.

Suleiman,
You can record directly from the cable box, you have to call the cable company and ask them for a box with a 1394 port. They have to give you one since it is a FCC mandate, but some still refuse.

Then you can use the Apple Firewire SDK or iRecord to capture the HD via 1394 from the cable box. The problem is that most of the content is encrypted so you can record them.

elgato eyetv 500 should work for you
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv500

eh, I'm furious with this thing, I have the PPC version, and it has a tendency to freeze while playing, and it's not just a simple matter of force quit, it doesn't respond to such things, so it just sits there, dead, I can't start it back up until I log out or restart OSX.

I don't find much on Google or Elgato, any advice?

Can someone help me? Is there a tuner to hook up to a Mac (Intel) that will work with digital cable. I.e., one that can control channels on a digital cable box so you can tell it to record shows well in advance without having to worry about what channel the digital cable box is on, or one that can change channels on a digital cable box? Thanks.