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NTSC TV tuner that works with Linux for watching live TV?

post #1 of 12
9/12/12 at 5:15pm
Thread Starter 
I'm looking for a TV tuner PCI-E card or USB dongle that can receive an analog cable signal via RF coax and display the video in a Linux window.

I don't need it to record, I only want to be able to watch sports or news while I'm doing other stuff on my desktop computer.

Does that exist for under $80? (if I have to spend over $80 I'll just buy a small TV to put beside my monitor)
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post #2 of 12
9/13/12 at 12:21pm
Haven't used NTSC in years, and the cards I have that can do it are used for QAM, and are PCI. Not sure of any PCIe NTSC devices, but maybe these links will help:

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Video_via_USB

Not sure how easy it is to locate these devices anymore, or how much they cost.
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post #3 of 12
9/14/12 at 10:03am
For under $80 you can get a HDHomrun on sale... Hook it to your network, and you'll have 2 ATSC/QAM tuners, plus full support under Linux.
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post #4 of 12
9/14/12 at 10:56am
I think most avermedia and Hauppage tuners have linux beta drivers, a few can be found that still support NTSC (look on Ebay too)... try this look under the App/driver tab.

HDHomerun does not support NTSC
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post #5 of 12
9/14/12 at 2:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DanPackMan View Post

I think most avermedia and Hauppage tuners have linux beta drivers, a few can be found that still support NTSC (look on Ebay too)... try this look under the App/driver tab.
HDHomerun does not support NTSC

NTSC is dead over-the-air; most if not all stations are now digital, and even the low power stations have a dead line to convert to digital/ATSC; most if not all cable companies are stopping analog on their cable.

If he is after OTA (over-the-air), it's best to first check at http://www.tvfool.com and see what stations he can receive, and what technology the broadcast in.
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post #6 of 12
9/14/12 at 6:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tdavis View Post

NTSC is dead over-the-air; most if not all stations are now digital, and even the low power stations have a dead line to convert to digital/ATSC; most if not all cable companies are stopping analog on their cable.
If he is after OTA (over-the-air), it's best to first check at http://www.tvfool.com and see what stations he can receive, and what technology the broadcast in.

The OP said he wanted to receive analog cable, that's usually NTSC. My cable still has a lot of NTSC channels, including ESPN and others. For many cable customers, if you want to watch ESPN on your desktop, its either NTSC with a cheap dongle, or pay for cable card.
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post #7 of 12
9/15/12 at 12:23pm
Support for NTSC tuners seems to be fading on Linux. Some cards that used to work no longer work, and there does not seem to be much interest in maintaining them.
The developers, it seems, have moved on to digital tuners.
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post #8 of 12
9/15/12 at 4:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DAP View Post

Support for NTSC tuners seems to be fading on Linux. Some cards that used to work no longer work, and there does not seem to be much interest in maintaining them.
The developers, it seems, have moved on to digital tuners.
The world has moved on to digital tuners. It won't be long before cable drops it (NTSC) too. It consumes bandwith that they could use for other things.
Edited by waterhead - 9/15/12 at 4:52pm
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post #9 of 12
9/16/12 at 5:22pm
Thread Starter 
Maybe I should have explained my setup in more detail.

I don't care about analog channels from the cable provider. I have a TiVo with cable cards that receives digital channels. The TiVo is connected to the living room TV via HDMI, but it also transmits simultaneously on S-Video and composite. So I got a device that takes the composite video and analog audio signals from the TiVo and converts them into NTSC/RF over coax.

That RF output is then is plugged back into my condo's cable wiring so every room with a cable TV connection can see what's on the TiVo (obviously not in HD, but that's not important for the small TVs that are elsewhere in the condo). I also got an RF extender for the remote so I can change channels, pause, rewind, fast forward etc. from any room.

For my immediate concern what I ended up doing is buying this Mygica device that converts an RF signal to VGA video and analog audio: http://www.amazon.com/Mygica-SuperColor-Converter-Definition-Standalone/dp/B000XY6N5Y

I will connect it to the second monitor in the "computer room", so I can watch TV simply by switching that monitor from DVI to VGA. Of course, it'll mean I can't use 2 monitors for the computer while watching TV, but that's not a big deal since most of the time I don't need both monitors anyway, and when I do need both monitors it's because I'm doing something for which I don't wanted to be distracted by TV.

I'll update this thread after it arrives and I've set it up.
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post #10 of 12
9/16/12 at 6:27pm
Does your monitor have Picture-In-Picture (PIP)? My 24" Samsung monitor has PIP, and I could have a second input displayed that way.
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post #11 of 12
9/17/12 at 5:14pm
Thread Starter 
No PIP on the monitors I'm using. Maybe next year when I'm hopefully in better financial shape and prices have come down some more I'll look into getting a 24-incher with PIP.
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post #12 of 12
9/28/12 at 4:09pm
Thread Starter 
The Mygica arrived and I've been using it for a few days now. The device gives a decent video image, considering that the video is coming from the composite analog output of the TiVo, then being transformed to RF and then RF to VGA.

It has a VGA input with PIP so it can display both the cable image and video card output at the same time. However, it noticeably degraded the VGA image coming from the computer, so I didn't want to use it that way. Perhaps it wouldn't degrade a monitor with lower resolution like 1366x768, but it wasn't good enough for the 1920x1080 monitor I'm using.

I also didn't like the thought of sacrificing one of the two monitors to it. Then I remembered I had an old 19-inch non-widescreen monitor stashed in the closet among some other junk, so I dug it out and made some space for it on my desk (it was kinda tough to get 3 monitors to fit) and use it exclusively for the Mygica. It has some dead pixels which were sometimes annoying it when using it with the computer, but are practically unnoticeable when using it to watch TV.
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