Plus the amazingly cheap USB stick I used is great for Software Defined Radio (SDR) – you can monitor a huge range of frequencies using (directly in MacOS – no need for a Linux VM) – as well as listen to normal radio & emergency frequencies, aeroplanes, maritime radio, satellites etc etc. There’s a fascinating world of radio and data out there! The USB stick uses the RealTek RTL2832U chipset – as does a bunch of others. In fact, if I had used Virtual Box rather than Parallels, the only cost would’ve been the USB TV tuner.

It saved me hundreds of dollars after looking for equivalent stuff for a Mac – there is no open source MacOS TV software I could find. Note – I haven’t tried the examples I’ve linked to on amazon, but Wiltronics no longer seem to sell the models listed here previously, so do some research. It works fine under Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (DVB-T standard countries only). Parallels/ Virtual Box) and install Me TV (link: ) software (or from the Ubuntu software repository if available) and buy a cheap rtl2832u/r820t chipset DVB-T USB stick ( example) and an mcx to PAL co-ax adapter ( example). UberNerdy tip-of-the-day: If you want a super-cheap TV on your MacOS computer (along with EPG & PVR) – install Ubuntu Linux on a Virtual Machine (e.g. An interesting exercise would be to compile MeTV into a Docker container/image (not something I have any specialism in, but please add a comment + link if you are doing this) – it might make it a whole lot easier.

For an updated version of MeTV check out the GitHub repository here: and latest compiled executables at Bintray here. The advice provided here is getting a bit old, but may still work with Ubuntu 14.04. Update July 2020: Check out the comments for newer solutions using Xubuntu and Kaffeine app.

Sdrsharp for mac