Since 0.6.8 it's possible to watch the TV in smplayer (dvb:// and tv://).

This document provides some info about how to do it.

INTRO:

smplayer doesn't include any option to scan for channels, so mplayer must be 
configured to tune to TV channels.

That means that the following:

mplayer dvb://
or
mplayer tv://

should work (should display a TV channel).

And the following should tune to the specified channel:

mplayer dvb://Channel_name
or
mplayer tv://Channel_name


DVB:

The support for dvb in smplayer is intented for dvb-t (terrestrial). It can 
work with dvb-c and dvb-s (cable and satellite) but it hasn't been tested.

smplayer will look for the file ~/.mplayer/channels.conf.ter (or 
~/.mplayer/channels.conf if that doesn't exist), and the menus Open->TV and 
Open->Radio will be populated with the channels there (the menu Open->Radio 
will show the channels without video pid. Notice that for dvb-s and dvb-c the 
check for audio and video pids will probably fail and all channels will end up 
in the TV menu).

If you don't have a ~/.mplayer/channels.conf you can create with scan (in
ubuntu is in the dvb-apps package):

scan initial_file > ~/.mplayer/channels.conf 

The initial_file contains info about the frequencies that have to be scanned,
you'll find a lot in /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/ (use the one for your town).

You can also use w_scan, which doesn't require any initial file.


TV:

The support for analog TV (tv://) in smplayer is very basic  (it can recognize
a tv:// stream as being a TV channel, but that's all) and configuration
has to be done manually.

First you need some lines in your ~/.mplayer/config with the TV configuration
(driver, norms, frequencies...). Example:

tv=driver=v4l:input=0:width=768:height=576:device=/dev/video0:audiorate=48000:n
orm=PAL:chanlist=europe-west:channels=46-TV_1,43-TV_2,50-TV_3,53-TV_4

For more info take a look at the mplayer manpage.

After that you have to introduce all channels in smplayer (Open->TV->Edit).


THE CHANNEL EDITOR:

The channel editor allows you to add, modify and remove TV channels. You'll
see a table with all channels. Each channel contains 3 fields: icon, name
and stream. The name will appear in the menu, the stream is what mplayer will
open to tune the channel. Examples:

ICON   NAME          STREAM
       CNN           dvb://CNN
       BBC           tv://TV_1
       Webcam        tv://

The list of TV channels is saved to ~/.config/smplayer/tv.m3u8, while the
list of radio is saved to ~/.config/smplayer/radio.m3u8.

Note 1: by default smplayer will scan the file ~/.mplayer/channels.conf on every
startup and will add the new channels it finds there. That means that if you
delete dvb channels from the editor they will appear again in the next session
(smplayer will think they are new). To avoid that, there's an option in 
Preferences->TV to disable the scanning of the channels.conf file.

Note 2: it's possible to set an icon for each channel. The icon will be 
displayed in the menus. Currently it's possible to set an icon, change it
but there's now way to remove it... (unless you edit manually the *.m3u8 files)

Note 3: the tv and radio lists can be "misused" as favorite lists, you can
enter any other kind of media (internet streams, local files...) not only tv
channels.


OPTIONS FOR TV

Some options have been added for TV:

 * there's a new section for TV in Preferences, which allows for instance to
   set the default deinterlacer to be use with TV channels.
 * it's possible to set a cache for TV in Preferences -> Performance -> Cache


REMEMBERING THE TV SETTINGS

One nice thing: the settings of TV channels are remembered. That means that
filters, options (like zoom) and so on will be remembered when you tune that
channel again.


(ADVANCED) ADDITIONAL AUDIO TRACKS IN DVB CHANNELS

You'll notice that when you tune a dvb channel only the first audio track is
available. To fix the problem you need to add manually the additional audio pids
to channels.conf.

For instance, take a look at this line taken from ~/.mplayer/channels.conf:

ANTENA.NEOX:858000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:501:503:141

Let's see the 3 last fields:
501:503:141

501 is the video pid, 503 is the audio pid (and 141 I think is the teletext pid)
Several audio pids can be added separated by "+". For instance:

501:503+504:141

This way the 2nd audio track (504) will be available when you watch that channel
in smplayer. Notice that to be able to actually switch audio tracks in dvb 
channels you need a recent version of mplayer (r29381).