I've been looking at getting an FM radio interface for my computer. I haven't been able to find any that satisfied me, so far, so I've been looking at the possibility of building one myself.
This would require at least two things:
Philips Semiconductors has several nice looking FM tuners-on-a-chip, for instance the TEA5711/N2.
I like the simplicity of USB, so I've been looking for USB audio components. I've found an USB ADC from Asahi Kasei, the AK5371 2-channel ADC with USB Interface. It looks like it would be almost ideal for the purpose.
A simple solution would seem to be to connect these two, and use the AU9254 integrated single chip USB hub controller from Alcor Micro to connect this, and an USB microcontroller to a PC.
An interesting ting would be use a Philips SAA6579 RDS demodulator, so you can see what program you're watching (and for use in mp3 streaming).
An alternative might be to use a FPGA to:
Unfortunately, I have no knowledge of VHDL, and no inclination to study it, for a small project like this.
You might ask, why I haven't just purchased a DAB receiver, like the TerraTec DR Box 1 instead of wasting my time, thinking about this. I may do that at some point, but right now there are no DAB broadcasts in my area, which renders that option moot. It seems the DR Box 1 wasn't developed by TerraTec, and is supposed to have excellent Linux driver support.
As an aside, I can't really recommend TerraTec. I bought one of their rather expensive SoundSystem DMX sound cards almost two years ago (2000-09). At the time it didn't have reasonable Windows 2000/XP/Linux driver support, but it was said to be in the works. In december 2001, however, a message was posted to their homepage, stating that the SoundSystem DMX wouldn't be supported under Windows 2000 or XP. I went straight out and bought a SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum from Creative Labs instead. I've been very pleased with it, and it has excellent driver support.