Airstar HD5000

Support is included in the kernel, and thus no additional drivers are needed.

pcHDTV 3000, pcHDTV 2000

Both the pcHDTV 2000 & 3000 are supported in the kernel, but need firmware to function. The firmware can be obtained as follows:

• 1) Obtain the firmware

  • wget http://pchdtv.com/downloads/firmware.tar.gz

  2) Extract firmware

  • tar xzzf firmware.tar.gz firmware

  3) Copy the firmware to /lib/firmware

  • sudo cp firmware/* /lib/firmware

  4) Clean up after yourself

  • rm firmware firmware.tar.gz

ATI HDTV Wonder

The ATI HDTV Wonder is supported by the cx88-dvb DVB driver with the kernel, but needs firmware to function. The firmware can be obtained as follows:

• 1) Download this script.

  • get_dvb_firmware

  2) Make it executable.

  • chmod +x get_dvb_firmware

  3) Run the script to obtain the firmware

  • ./get_dvb_firmware nxt2004

  4) Copy the firmware to /lib/firmware

  • sudo cp dvb-fe-nxt2004.fw /lib/firmware

  5) Test the module

  • sudo modprobe cx88-dvb

DTV

For Europe, Australia, and anywhere else that the DVB standard is in use, Ubuntu and MythTV support a wide range of digital capture devices. DVB is already compressed, so much lower-end hardware can be used for the backend provided you don't want to transcode to make the recorded video even smaller. If the card is supported by the standard DVB drivers, it's highly likely to be supported in Ubuntu.