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Where Are All of the HDTV Tuners?
An anonymous reader asks: "Today I read about rabbit ears making a comeback with OTA HTDV. I want to purchase a standalone ATSC HDTV tuner to go with my projector, but I am having a very hard time finding one. The big-box stores seem to only stock one or two models and are frequently sold out. Searching online yields similar results. It would seem that there would be ever increasing demand for these tuners given that many HDTVs were sold without internal tuners in years past, and these tuners will be necessary for all old NTSC TVs after the February, 2009 shutdown of analog broadcasts. Where should I look to buy one of these devices? Of the currently available models, which are the best? Will the standalone HDTV tuner become a ubiquitous item as the 2009 deadline approaches?"
If you can find a Samsung SIR-T165, SIR-T451 or DTB-H260F, pick one up.
I have an SIR-T165 and it works great. Tunes all analog cable, OTA analog and digital, plus OTA HDTV. Supports all formats. No broadcast flag, IEEE-1394/FireWire, DVI, VGA/RGB, S-Video, component, composite. Samsung did a really great job packing in a lot of connectors, formats, and functionality. The SIR-T451 appears to add QAM for digital cable (in the clear, no doubt), and HDCP on the DVI.
This doesn't answer the question about where they've all gone, but Samsung did a good job and hopefully you can pick one of these, or something like it, up somewhere.
Rabbit ears are generally useless for picking up HD signals. Rabbit ears pick up VHF signals, while almost all of the HD broadcasts are done in the UHF range. In order to pickup HD signals you'll need to get either a directional UHF antenna (my Silver Surfer works great), a loop UHF antenna, or one of those grid things that you can stick in your attic.
This guy's the limit!
http://www.silicondust.com/
go read up. you need a pc (this isn't an end-user device that connects directly to a tv) but it DOES have atsc and clear-qam. meaning: off the air and also cable unencrypted.
seems to work, too. I love mine. 1 channel of HD takes 15% of a 10/100 ether. gig-e is not even close to needed, here, thankfully. (all the work is in PLAYBACK, not saving to disk, btw).
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
What gets me is that we are 3 days from the March 1, 2007 date when every device with an analog tuner, must have a digital one (see "Digital Receiver Availability and FCC Tuner Requirements"). That means not only all TVs (even 13" and below), but also VCRs, DVD recorders, etc. But where are they?
Xesdeeni
The silicondust website is currently having issues. Google cache: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:LJZMm-6NRmkJ: www.silicondust.com/wiki/products/hdhomerun+silico ndust.com&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
9thtee:
http://www.9thtee.com/hdhomerun.htm
DirecTV has already done it, and that's more than half of the sat world to most consumers. Of course, they cannabalized their (mumble mumble) data service to do it. Dish just keeps adding dishes to the lawn to bring in more sats.
It takes less bandwidth for digital cable than OTA, and having two hundred more shopping channels isn't exactly on consumer's must-have-now list.
10 years is a long time. Consumer HD devices have been out for quite some time, it's been the encoding that has kept the whole thing from going anywhere. Most of the problems with the roll out stem from the FCCs total lack of backbone in setting the standard (singular). Instead, we got a "whatever you guy want" spec that is a royal PITA to implement. And don't even think of arguing VSB or QAM. As a consumer, I don't give a shit which has more technical superiority in certain circumstances - I want it to work. The FCC should have mandated a single type of encoding. Period. We all agree that VHS was chosen over Betamax for user-friendliness over quality - but you get enough eggheads and technophiles in a room with the bean counters and you can pretty much just ask the consumer to drop trou and bend over.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Most of this information has been repeated in the comments here already, but I thought I'd sum up the dates and whatnot:
(From Wikipedia) The FCC has issued the following mandates for devices entering the US:
* By July 1, 2005 all televisions with screen sizes over 36" must include a built-in ATSC DTV tuner
* By March 1, 2006 all televisions with screen sizes over 25" must include a built-in ATSC DTV tuner
* By March 1, 2007 all televisions regardless of screen size, and all interface devices which include a tuner (VCR, DVD player/recorder, DVR) must include a built-in ATSC DTV tuner
That's 3 days from now, AND includes things like TV tuner cards, which explains why companies like Hauppauge just released a "budget" dual NTSC/ATSC line, the HVR-950/1600.
* A Congressional bill has authorized subsidizing converter boxes that would allow people to receive the new digital broadcasts on their old TVs. The current plan is to make two $40 coupons available from January 1, 2008 through March 31, 2009 for each household that relies exclusively on over-the-air television reception.
* In the United States, the switch-off of all analog terrestrial TV broadcasts has been mandated for no later than February 17, 2009. Legislation setting this deadline was signed into law in early 2006. Currently, most U.S. broadcasters are beaming their signals in both analog and digital formats; a few are digital-only.
So, expect to see ATSC tuners become more plentiful in early 2008, once the subsidies start rolling in.
Analog over-the-air television broadcasting is going away. The OP is confusing SDTV (Standard Definition digital TV) with Analog. SDTV is still digital - it's just at the same resolution as analog NTSC - 480 visible scan lines (525 including non-visible vertical blanking interval).
SDTV is not going away: stand-alone SDTV tuners will allow you to receive digital TV and convert it to analog for display on your old TV, or for recording on you even older VCR.
It's lights-out for analog TV over-the-air broadcasting in 2009. Analog via cable is another matter. As long as the cable companies can squeeze dollars from that turnip, it will continue.
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."