tzap

If you haven't given up by now, congratulations. You're on the home stretch.

Copy your channels.conf to ~/.tzap.

Now, download the DVB drivers from http://linvdr.org/download/vdr/linux-dvb.2003-11-08.tar.bz2 http://linvdr.org/download/vdr/linux-dvb.2003-11-08.tar.bz2, unzip, compile and install tzap. The whole session looks like this:

wget http://linvdr.org/download/vdr/linux-dvb.2003-11-08.tar.bz2
bunzip2 linux-dvb.2003-11-08.tar.bz2
cd linux-dvb.2003-11-08/apps/szap
make
cp tzap /usr/local/bin

Run tzap -r <Channelname> &. Channelname is the first entry on one of the lines of your channels.conf. After a short pause, your TV should be displaying the chosen channel. tzap should be outputting a line like this:

status 1f | signal 00ff | snr 0000 | ber 00000000 | unc 00000000 | FE_HAS_LOCK

over and over.