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 scan utility from the LinuxTV dvb-apps.
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