How do I save shows from my Time Warner DVR?

I’ve been doing some reading about this and have seen information about using video capture cards, the firewire port and a DVD recorder. My computer doesn’t have a firewire port so every option would require me to buy something. It probably doesn’t need to be said, but I’d like to get the best quality videos as quickly and cheaply as possible. Is it true that you can’t transfer HD video directly to a computer? How easy would it be to bypass the DVR entirely for future recordings and save things directly to the computer? If you’ve done this and have tips or product recommendations I’d like to hear them. My computer is a laptop so it’s not the most powerful machine. It has Windows 7, 64 bit.

What you want to do ranges from difficult to not possible. FireWire is the only way to get a recording off a typical DVR but some channels (like HBO) cannot be copied by FireWire. Others may also be subject to restrictions but vary by cable company. Only CBS, NBC etc. can always be freely copied from a DVR.

‘Copy’ via FireWire from a DVR involves playing a show back in real time - not like copying a computer file.

Recording directly to a PC can be done but requires a tuner and extra software. Recording a protected channel like HBO presents more hoops to jump through.

Check out the HTPC discussions at AVSForum for the gory details.