When I had the 8300HD (two of them). the firewire port was open and you can indeed connect to it.
If you can record off the firewire port, it will be 100% original digital copy, not the lower resolution SD from the analog video output.
I now no longer use these DVRs and switched to use my PC as whole house DVR. Any recording I made will be already on my PC. And if the show is not copy protected, I can edit and copy which ever way I wanted.
