I managed to get AVCBrowser to work with my Comcast STB, 10 ft 6x9 Firewire cable, 2011 27" iMac running Lion, and latest version of VLC 1.1.12. Firewire SDK26.
Couldn't get Virtual DVHS nor Virtual DV to work. VLC gave a full HD picture and recording, found that if I messed with trying to be clever I got a picture but no sound so I just used the VLC presets and MPEG TS. Picture on the iMac looks better than my 52" Sony Bravia.

I went through all the VLC encapsulate options and managed to save various channels as MPEG TS.
Problem is: after playing for a while I switched on the TV and found that all the 'Program Guide" stuff had been erased! The guide didn't show up on the firewire stream but recorded programs did and could be recorded to iMac.
All the recorded stuff was still on the STB HD but the guide was being downloaded, takes forever, future recordings were just time and channel with no title.

Anyone know what I might be doing wrong or, are Comcast just messing with me?
Any help appreciated.

David