Watch TV on your computer - the lite version: as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4 (somewhat Ubuntu specific)

Step 0: Get a USB TV Tuner stick that your computer auto-detects/mounts, 
plug it in to the computer and a known good aerial (if you can take the 
aerial feed from your TV initially so you have something to compare the 
quality to).

I am using the Kaiser Baas TV Stick available from Noel Leeming for $70. 
It comes with a portable aerial that may be of use to you but isn't to 
me (I can't pick up a signal with it at my place unless I'm standing 
outside in the driveway in direct line of sight to Mt Cargill). To check 
to see if the TV Tuner is detected, see the results of 'ls /dev/dvb'. If 
it comes up 'no such file or directory' when its plugged in, this 
procedure won't work for you. For some reason my tuner is detected in 
Ubuntu 13.10 on my laptop but not on the other 2 computers in the house 
running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and Ubuntu 12.10.

Step 1: Create a channels.conf file in your home folder. If you are in 
Dunedin I can email you mine; otherwise run the command:
w_scan -c NZ -X > ~/channels.conf
This will take 5 minutes or so to scan for available channels.
(if you aren't in NZ, 'w_scan -c ?' will give you a list of alternate 
country codes)
You probably need to install the w-scan package first: sudo apt-get 
install w-scan
I have put this command in a one line script file so I can re-run it if 
need be e.g. the channels frequencies change etc.


Step 2: Watch TV in VLC. I created a one line script I can double click 
on. The one line is:
vlc ~/channels.conf
(You can change channel with the next and previous track buttons and/or 
clicking around the full list of channels available in the playlist)

Step 3: Set up recordings if you like by installing the package "Digital 
TV Control Center" and in the set up process associate the tuner card 
with the ~/channels.conf file. (If you want to record a program on 
channels 1,2, or 3, and you don't especially care about quality and 
there is no timing conflict you probably want to record the version on 
an hour later on the +1 channel as it is SD whereas the original 
channels are HD). The recorded programs can be watched in VLC as well. 
The recordings don't seem to want to be converted to alternate formats 
in bulk with my scripts but will do fine if you do them one by one with 
the convert function in VLC.

Step 4: Plug in alternate aerials and test the signal.
Download the perl script http://www.mattgrill.com/files/testsignal and 
set it to be executable. Run it with the known good aerial to get a feel 
for the signal strength in your area then plug in alternate aerial(s) 
and do it again (and move it around if its a directional aerial) to see 
how well it works. In my case the main channels get a 34% signal from 
the roof aerial, 28% on the directional one from inside and the aerial 
that comes with the tuner only gets 14% when in direct line of sight to 
Mt. Cargill.

-- 
"Believing men would act in their own interest was not cynicism, it turned out, but sheerest optimism; in reality men do not meet so high a standard."
-- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Chapter 84)
http://hpmor.com/

Reece Arnott
Dunedin
New Zealand


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