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Mark Norgren
Asked: 2010-08-24 05:05:04 +0800 CST

What software is available to use TV tuner card?

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I am looking for software programs to use my TV Tuner card in Ubuntu. I have mythTV installed and use it quite a bit. But I am looking for a program that can tune my tuner card in just a window, not only a full-screen.

E.g. - I would like to watch something in a browser, while having a TV channel playing in another window. Maybe a program like VLC that can control my tuner?

software-recommendation mythtv tv-tuner

7 Answers

  1. You're requesting to watch TV with VLC - well it is possible. See this answer.

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    Else some illustrations of the other applications:

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  2. Me TV Install me-tv is a pretty decent under-appreciated application for DVB-* devices.

    Has an EPG, even recording facilities. Much, much lighter than MythTV.

    sudo apt-get install me-tv
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  3. MythTV Install mythtv can also be configured to run in a window. In the MythTV Frontend, go to Setup > Appearance and the first screen should look similar to the screen below. You can set the size of the menu here, and also if you want the playback to use the same size area. Setting the window border option will add or remove the window border, and setting fixed window size will make the windows either resizable or not.

    enter image description here

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  4. There is also Gnome's own DVB Daemon. As its name suggests it sits behind the scenes allowing applications to leverage its power. There is a Totem plugin Install totem-plugins-dvb-daemon that allows you to use it (though I haven't tested a recent version so I don't quite know how good it is).

    sudo apt-get install totem-plugins-dvb-daemon

    That will get all the dependencies too.

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  5. You could always use mplayer Install mplayer:

    mplayer -fs dvb://[card_number@]channel

    The -fs flag enables full screen mode.

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  6. tvtime Install tvtime is probably the simplest window type TV viewer. Works well with ATI cards.

    enter image description here

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  7. You could always just do mythfrontend -w and run MythTV Install mythtv in a window. You may have to do Alt + Space to bring up a menu and leave fullscreen mode. Also, as I recall. there's a setting for the frontend to always start in windowed mode.

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