DVR Chatter

What are you dumping it to and how are you dumping it?

If you're not going to provide details as to the tools and methods you're using, there is very little chance anyone here is going to be able to help you.  We're not psychic.

I'm not sure what you mean by "comes out slow."  After you've captured the file, is it in slo-mo when you replay it?  I'm never able to monitor the capture in real time, but it's OK when I replay it.  Try using VLC Media Player to monitor the real time output.

Have you tried playing it with any other application?

You might try ESPN-HD, since it is 720p (same as ABC) to see if you get the same effect.

I haven't tried capturing anything from ABC before, but I'll give it a shot (tomorrow) to see what it's like.

I recorded short files of ABC, ESPN, and NBC HD, and had trouble playing back ABC with Windows Media Player.  However, I had even more trouble with ESPN and VLC Media Player.  When I used the program I normally process the files with (VideoReDo), they all played perfectly.

Free trial -- http://www.videoredo.com/
At least it will let you see the possibilities.
Wide screen.  Great for editing & merging.
(I have no commercial interest in it.)

I went to the Videoredo as a last resort, because I wanted to be able to edit the mpeg2 files.  I also use MPEG2Repair and have used HDTV2MPEG2, and I'll have to check out the other tools Frank recommends.  Maybe they'll also do what I want.