HDTV Tuner

Digital tuners will become a necessity after February 2009. This is because the FCC has opted to eliminate analog usage and replace it with digital signals. The reason for doing so is simple; digital is far more advanced. So what does this mean for you? It’s fairly simple, you’ll either need to purchase a television, VCR, DVD player, DVD recorder all with HDTV tuner or a digital tuner. That’s not to say you need all of this equipment but one or the other must have a digital tuner in place.

A tuner basically works by generating audio and video signals from over the air television broadcasting systems. In the United States multiple signals are combined and transmitted through one antenna source then decoded and transferred as one transport stream to your TV. The picture is made available to your television through a process called media reformatting. This is significant because not all televisions have an interfaced picture nor do they all equip themselves with progressive scan.

Within the US there are some important things for you to note:

After July of 2005 all televisions with screens larger than 36 inches had to be equipped with a digital tuner. In 2006, this number was lowered to include televisions as small as a 25 inch screen size. Following in March of 2007 it was ruled that all televisions, regardless the size, had to be equipped with a tuner. Thus, buying a newer television also decreases the need for additional equipment for tuning.