Many of my friends are impressed with Windows Media Center. On checking with some PC vendors, I learned that its just a PC + TV Tuner Card + Windows + Software to control the TV and do the recording.
What is needed is any TV Tuner Card. If you need to record then TV Tuner Card with hardware MPEG encoder would be preferred.
This can easily be done on Linux as well. You can also save some money Hauppauge is considered to be a good TV tuner card and works well with Linux too.
On Linux there are two good open source software which can achieve this: Freevo and MythTV.
Freevo is easy to use and quicker to setup.
MythTV is suppose to be considered more stable and also allows you to pause TV programs while watching them. When you do that, it starts recording in the background.
Setting up MythTV may be more complex but there are ways to speed that up. The best bet is to use Knoppmyth. This is bootable CD (based on knoppix) which is already preconfigured with MythTV. All you have to do it boot from this CD, it will load Linux + MythTV. However if you want record, you will need to install to the hard disk.
If you are installing MythTV on SUSE Professional 9.3 then this guide will be a definite help.
Newsforge also has an article on this.
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This is an old comment. Have you seen the VISTA media center? I do not think there is an equivalent program in Linux. VISTA is pretty plus the aero gives it added graphics. Windows Media Center in VISTA is much more than a “tv tuner” software. I think you will have to come up with a fresh, credible answer.
I bought a pinnacle pctv 50i and it works well with Linux. I’ve written more about it here.
(http://blog.prashanthellina.com/2008/03/23/watching-television-on-linux-setting-up-a-tv-tuner-card/)
PCI-E DVB-S2 Dual Tuner TV card supports dual DVB-S2 TV channels receiving synchronously, which enables you to watch channel from one transporder/satellite while recording another channel from another transporder/satellite. Or you can use one channel for data download while watching TV in another channel in the same time.
TBS6981 is ideal for building HTPC under Linux MythTV, VDR, XBMC and Windows 7 Media Center.
TBS6981 is compatible with Freesat.
http://www.buydvb.net/tbs6981-pcie-dvbs2-dual-tuner-tv-card_p11.html
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Tevii S660 DVB-S2 Tuner USB Box
Key Features
Watch DVB-S/S2 TV and Radio on PC
Support SDTV and HDTV (MPEG-4 AVC/ H.264 and MPEG-2 Standard)
Real-time recording in MPEG/TS format
DVB Electronic Program Guide (EPG)
Transponder / satellite auto scan
http://www.pctvshop.com/dvbs2-usb-tv-tuner-tevii-s660-p-17.html