Xine

Xine is a very popular multimedia player for Linux. Above all, it's a movie player, but it also can play audio files or connect to live streams. DVB cards can be accessed using the dvb input plugin.

Xine in its graphical version gxine for X11 has a very intuitive and powerful GUI. Many users like it for providing much functionality for watching TV very easily. (On the other side, VDR has better functionality for recording / scheduled recording, for the price of more installation and configuration fiddling.)

Usage

In Debian/Ubuntu etc

 apt-get install gxine

Then create the channels list using the dvbtools' scan

 mkdir ~/.xine
 scan >~/.xine/channels.conf

Now start up gxine

 gxine

and open the DVB card with

 File -> Open MRL -> dvb://

You should now see a program. You should be able to zap around using the NumPad-9 / NumPad-3 keys, the xine playlist, or using the next/previous chapter buttons in your gui.

Xine appears to only tune dvb-s channels via the channels.conf file if you are using a Universal type lnbf. That is one with an LO: 9750/10600. C-Band LO: 5150 and Ku band LO:10750 commonly used in North America seem to be unsupported as yet unless I'm missing something.

See also

• xine Digital TV (DVB) - HOWTO use xine for DVB
• Official xine homepage