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willey995 · (This post was last modified: 2013-10-29, 07:08 by willey995.)

I was looking at an Avermedia m791B tuner card. Does anybody know if this is sufficient to run live tv on XBMC? If not, what would be a good tuner card for a reasonable price.? Also, what would I look for to be able to run HDTV? Are there certain requirements needed in a tuner?

nickr · 2013-10-29, 07:09

What are you capturing?

Where are you capturing it?

What backend do you plan on using?

What OS?

noggin · (This post was last modified: 2013-10-29, 11:56 by noggin.)

Also - which country are you in?

Different countries use different broadcast TV standards, for over-the-air broadcasts you receive with an antenna/aerial :

Europe, Aus and NZ (and lots of other places) use DVB-T, and in some cases DVB-T2.

US, Canada, Mexico & South Korea use ATSC 8VSB.

Japan uses ISDB-T.

Much of South America is migrating to a South American version of ISDB-T.

China has its own standard I believe.

Some other countries are still using analogue PAL, SECAM or NTSC.

willey995 · (This post was last modified: 2013-10-29, 15:02 by willey995.)

OS will be Ubuntu or Openelec. I live in the U.S. I am just learning about the live tv part from watching Youtube so I can not answer exactly how I would set it up. At this time want to get the hardware and then will research the software. I want to be able to control XBMC with the remote and then be able to stream live hd tv.

nickr · 2013-10-29, 20:46

Well you need something linux compatible then. Look in the hardware section of the DVB wiki at www.linuxtv.org

noggin · (This post was last modified: 2013-10-30, 03:15 by noggin.)

(2013-10-29, 15:00)willey995 Wrote: OS will be Ubuntu or Openelec. I live in the U.S. I am just learning about the live tv part from watching Youtube so I can not answer exactly how I would set it up. At this time want to get the hardware and then will research the software. I want to be able to control XBMC with the remote and then be able to stream live hd tv.

In the US you use ATSC 8VSB for OTA (Over The Air - i.e. what you receive through an antenna) broadcasts (i.e. your local stations - usually NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX O&Os or affiliates plus a PBS station and a few others) Tuner cards and USB external tuners are supported for this (confusingly some of the info is in Linux DVB wikis as DVB support pushed a lot of the Linux digital TV support) These are by far the best supported - but you only get a relatively small number of channels - and no pay TV.

Cable is more complicated in the states because of Cable Card (the Cable Labs decryption system for third party cable boxes etc.) certification and the DRM requirements, coupled with more and more cable companies encrypting even the local stations. Cable uses ATSC QAM. There are Clear QAM tuners (usually coupled with 8VSB for OTA) available - but the number of Clear QAM (i.e. unencrypted) services on cable is dropping AIUI. There is some support for ATSC QAM in Linux (there may even be some Cable Card support for some non-premium stuff)

I think TV Headend now has US support in it - and is bundled with OpenElec.

I have a TV Headend + Open Elec test setup in the UK with a UK Tuner (PCTV 290e DVB-T2 tuner - NOT suitable for the US!) and it works pretty well.

willey995 · 2013-10-30, 03:33

Thanks for your detailed answer. You are very knowledgeable.