All DVB-T USB sticks I own work under ubuntu/linux

I have an Anysee E30, a PCTV nanostick and a PCTV picostick 74e.

The picostick is the smallest and has "low power consumption" according to the manufacturer. But only the Anysee is rated (at 500mA). So how do you know that all DVB-T sticks require 500mA if it isn't in the specs ?

The nanostick and the picostick use a different chip, and the picostick requires a v4l patch before it works in Ubuntu. The Nanostick support is included in newer Ubuntu versions. Both require a firmware file. I assume all DVB-T USB adapters do (but not entirely sure about that).

I want to focus on getting the picostick to work on Maemo because it is the smallest and newest. It uses a chip from Abilis Systems AS102.
http://www.abilis.com/products_usb.php.
According to the reference design "low power", really is low:
Operational mode < 900 mW
so at 5V, that would be less than 200mA. And should be low enough to work on a N900 without a powered USB hub. (if the PCTV picostick has similar power consumption)



Streaming the MPEG2 streams from the Dutch Digitenne service from my ubuntu machine to the N900 (using tv headend ) I can tell you that the higher quality streams (Ned1, Ned2, Ned3) don't run smoothly in mplayer, but the lower quality streams do if you overclock the N900 slightly (Comedy Central etc.)