Recommendation on buying an USB TV tuner (analog OR hybrid) that will work?

Question

It seems that most PCI TV tuner cards do have some support for Linux. I'm not sure though about the USB ones (analog OR hybrid).

Do you have any experience that you could share regarding USB TV tuners (analog OR hybrid) under Ubuntu? I don't want to buy some device and then find out it's useless (if it's not working at all under Ubuntu).

My advice from this question (not a a dupe) holds true here: Just buy one locally, and return it to the shop if it doesn't work well. Most of them do. — Stefano Palazzo, Jun 05 '11 at 04:45

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 17 '12 at 00:58

I have two Plextor PX-TV402U's, one used with Mythbuntu and the other with a workstation to get videos from an analog camcorder. It's a lot more than a TV tuner, and they work great! There is a Linux driver, and they can be a little hard to find now. Might try Amazon instead of Plextor website. The hardware encoding keeps the loads off my CPUs.

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 05 '13 at 11:25

Unfortunately, the Avermedia H837 is not a good choice. I was given one and while it works wonderfully well under Windows I've been unable to see any flicker of life for it under Ubuntu. I have contacted the manufacturer without success and sought assistance in various places. The vendor refuses to refund and has nothing to exchange it for, " we don't carry merchandise old enough to work in Linux." While the sarcasm was uncalled for there is a grain of truth there...the older the USB tuner, the better the chances are that it will work. Leave the latest and greatest alone.

Recommendation on buying an USB TV tuner (analog OR hybrid) that will work?

2 Answers2