Using a DVB tuner from a macOS application

[lelegard]

Hello,

I have been using DVB tuner devices for years on Linux and Windows. I mean using tuners from a custom C++ application: tuning to a specific transport and reading the transport stream packets. I used the Linux TV API (V4 and S2API) and the Microsoft DirectShow graphs with BDA drivers.

Now, I would like to do the same on macOS.

Is there a standard DVB framework on macOS like Linux TV S2API or Microsoft DirectShow ?

A few tuner devices are said to be supported on macOS. What is the underlying software architecture? Do the vendors provide proprietary API's between a dedicated driver and a dedicated application? Or do they integrate into a documented framework I can call from an application?

Any recommended USB DVB-T tuner for macOS (on iMac), provided of course I can use it from a custom application ?

Thanks in advance for your input.

[Case]

Elgato used to make some EyeTV tuner products for Mac that are reasonably well known. They sold their EyeTV product line to Geniatech last year. Not sure about the underlying software architecture.

[lelegard]

EyeTV devices are "closed" in the sense that they can be used only with the TV viewing application which comes with the device. There is no clue on how to use the tuner device from a custom application. That is the answer of Geniatech support when I sent them the question.

More generally, I know no USB or PCI tuner device with a programming documentation for any OS. But, on Windows or Linux, all tuners are used through the OS-specific framework, DirectShow or LinuxTV, and a vendor-specific programming documentation is not really necessary. I am not a aware of a macOS equivalent.

What about the "PCTV microStick PC & Mac (79e/77e)"? This is a DVB-T one with vendor support on macOS.

[Case]

MythTV DVR is open source; perhaps their code and/or documentation has enough info for your use?

[lelegard]

MythTV DVR is open source; perhaps their code and/or documentation has enough info for your use?

It seems to me that MythTV does not interface local physical tuners, as it does on Linux. As described here, MythTV on macOS can only interact with external devices like HDHomeRun (IP connection to a remote tuner) or HDPVRCapture (an analog recording device). I see no indication that any local USB DVB tuner is supported by MythTV on macOS.

[lelegard]

I have contacted DVBLink support since they have a USB DVB-T tuner named TVButler which is supposed to work on macOS. Not possible again. It can only be used through their proprietary TV-watching application.