[johngalt007]

Hi guys, I would like to ditch my cable tv and reduce my bill by 125$/month.

I have been reading some threads on how to watch tv in xbmc. I am currently running xbmc live Dharma version on ASRock ION 330 which can only take an external usb tuner.

What are your recommendations for a tv tuner card that is supported by XBMC live, plugins (mythtv/tvhead/ etc.) and how best to go about installing them?

Thanks.

[Hammi]

You can find some information on TV hardware and how it runs under Linux in the Video4Linux Wiki.

I don't know, however, how this will help your bill, as you will still need to connect the hardware somewhere.

[Dobyken]

Hi guys, I would like to ditch my cable tv and reduce my bill by 125$/month.

I have been reading some threads on how to watch tv in xbmc. I am currently running xbmc live Dharma version on ASRock ION 330 which can only take an external usb tuner.

What are your recommendations for a tv tuner card that is supported by XBMC live, plugins (mythtv/tvhead/ etc.) and how best to go about installing them?

Thanks.

If you're serious about ditching cable then take a look at Sickbeard. Most shows will be on your system about 4 hours after they're broadcast EST. If your cable bill is $125 that means you're getting more than your locals and/or basic cable. The only thing I watch on live tv anymore is sports and local news. Only issues for me so far are things like Monday Night Football on ESPN and Nascar when it's on TNT or FX but there are a few solutions for those as well.
As hammi said..with Myth or any PVR you need a source. XBMC, as far as I know, does not natively support any tuners other than the HDHomerun which is a dual network tuner and would work for local TV with an antenna or QAM over cable. There's a MythTV wiki for hardware which lists a couple of USB Tuners. Whatever works in Myth should also work in the other Linux based PVR backends.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Digital_Tuner_Cards