I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to use my laptop computer's DVD burner to record television programming, specifically shows stored on my digital video recorder. My laptop is equipped with a FireWire port and USB 2.0 ports, as well as an S-Video port. Is this possible?

SVideo is output only so that is no good. USB is too unreliable for Video Streaming.

Therefore would suggest a FireWire Capture device:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=1424

http://www.videohelp.com/capture

I have an internal video capture card as well as a USB one and there is little difference... Contrary to the above statement, USB IS in fact quite stable.

Can you recommend a specific USB capture device then? Or are we just supposed to take your word for it?

Bob, the video stored on your PVR is already digitally compressed. You won't need to stream it in real time as you would with "live" TV, and you won't really be "capturing" it. Instead, you will be transcoding it - converting it from one format to another. The technique for doing this depends on what kind of PVR you have. So - what kind (make/model) PVR do you have? There are established communities devoted to most of the major ones (TiVO, ReplayTV, etc), so the best advice you get here will probably just be a link to one of them.