Making Sense Out of Tuners

All of this talk about tuners and digital broadcasts may be a bit confusing, despite the fact that a mandatory plan was implemented way back in 2002 by the FCC to gradually start integrating digital broadcast tuners into digital television monitors. In addition to being integrated into digital television monitors, this plan also included mandatory integration of digital broadcast tuners into other tuning devices such as HD DVRs.

The plan for integration of these tuners was in full gear in 2007. In fact, if you purchased a set that was 13 inches or larger, a digital broadcast tuner should already be integrated into the set. In addition, any digital television you find on the market today should also include digital terrestrial tuners, unless you are looking at a professional/industrial model because these sets do not necessarily fall under this mandate.

Most televisions you buy today will also have a cable on-the-clear tuner, which is used for unscrambled, non-premium channels. They may also include a CableCARD tuner, which is used for premium channels as well as some other services. It should be noted, however, that CableCARD tuners are unidirectional. This means they do not have the bi-directional features associated with Impulse Pay-per-View, Video-on-Demand, or programming guides supplied by cable companies. If you want to get these extra features, you are still going to need a separate set-top-box provided by the cable company.

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