usb tv tuners

[vinnywright]

after reading this thread http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...437#post315437 and having looked at the prices of DVR's I was wandering if I could maybe just use a usb-tv-tuner on my laptop for a makeshift DVR .

I would like to hear from any of you that have done anything like this ,,,or even just to watch tv on a laptop , what I want to know is....

1-what USB TV tuner's work with linux or specifically Kubuntu 12.04 and how to make them work well

2-what software is good for this ,,,,,,recording a show ,,,maybe even by a timed record time so I wouldn't half to be by the box to get the show.

3-how much room dose this usually take on your HD per a 1 hour show.

thank you in advance for your responses

VINNY

[Detonate]

I don't have any experience with USB Tuners, always used a internal card in my desktop pc, but if you get one working, and you can open it with VLC, you can record it.

[NickStone]

Found this page... http://www.adercon.com/ac/node/52

It also tells you to visit http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_Devices for details of TV tuners compatible with Linux

[NoWorries]

after reading this thread http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...437#post315437 and having looked at the prices of DVR's I was wandering if I could maybe just use a usb-tv-tuner on my laptop for a makeshift DVR .

I would like to hear from any of you that have done anything like this ,,,or even just to watch tv on a laptop , what I want to know is....

1-what USB TV tuner's work with linux or specifically Kubuntu 12.04 and how to make them work well

I have a rather old USB TV which is "problematic". You may find some useful information on: DVB-T USB Devices

2-what software is good for this ,,,,,,recording a show ,,,maybe even by a timed record time so I wouldn't half to be by the box to get the show.

I use Kaffeine for watching and recording Digital TV shows. For a recorded show I use Avidemux to edit it and convert it to file with an AVI format.

3-how much room dose this usually take on your HD per a 1 hour show.

I find that before editing with Avidemux, the file size is about 2GB for a 1hr Digital TV show. High Definition recordings are much larger and I avoid recording them. I do find that in the recorded file the sound is not synchronized with the image. I have to use about -600 for the Audio Shift in Avidemux. For Kubuntu 12.04 I was using about -300ms. Kubuntu 12.10 gives me more trouble with Avidemux and I hope that this is fixed one of these days.

[vinnywright]

thank you one and all for the info and links so far

I will probably be looking for a cheep one this weekend to try this, I will report my experience if I do

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

Look into a networked dual/triple tuner called HomeRun by Silicon Dust

[vinnywright]

Look into a networked dual/triple tuner called HomeRun by Silicon Dust

NOW that dose look just swell ,,,,,,,however we wont be getting that this weekend , a bit out of my price range for short notice purchase , but that looks like the ticket as it were .
maby I can save up for it for a Christmas present to myself

thanks @oshunluvr

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

The cool thing about it is the network part. You can use MythTV to access it or Kaffeen and VLC and from any computer on your network.

I've been struggling with cord-cutting technogies for awhile, but this seems the most versatile tuner I've seen so far. I love the fact that you're not limited to one computer accessing it. You can also connect multiple HDHomeRun's to your network and have more tuners available.

I haven't found any real usable DVR software yet and the last time I tried MythTV it was too buggy. Likely it's better now as that was some time ago. XBMC wasn't much better back then either. I haven't had the time to try TVHeadEnd but it has promise.

Currently, I'm using an OTA PVR device called "TViX" by a company called DVico from Korea. It's pretty good hardware (dual tuners, usb and network support) but the software (linux based) is crippled by crappy programmers and even though they've stopped making the device they won't release the source code (yet). If they ever do, it will be a real nice media device.

[vinnywright]

well the only reason I was asking about DVR software was to record and schedule a recording of the TV ......but it seems as Kaffeen and VLC will do the recording and it looks like Kaffeen will schedule one as well , if I get one I will be checking out mythTV as well though probably as my inner geek neads something to do, what, with my Kubuntu not having any problems to hammer out ,,,,,,

VINNY