HDTV Integrated Tuners, and You

[Rodolfo]

The cable and consumer electronics industries are moving towards integrating over-the-air (OTA) and cable HD tuners into HDTV sets. It is certainly good news that the cable industry is finally getting on board of HDTV.

Since about 70% of TV viewers subscribe to cable, this has the potential of accelerating the adoption of HDTV in general, at a pace we have not seen over the last 5 years. The integration of tuners into TVs seems to be an attractive proposition for everyone.

This article analyzes the subject to help you decide what is best for you.

[url=http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2006/01/hdtv_integrated.php]Read the Full Article[/url]

[herbdrake]

The problem of tuners is a big one for us at Lucas Valley Cable. Our local HDTV signals come from a ridge-top antenna tower in their ATSC format with Blonder Tongue HD processors which translate the off-air channels to cable channel frequencies. We have found that relatively few HD sets with built-in tuners can receive ATSC on cable channels, however. Sony, Philips, and RCA all seem work on cable, but Samsung, Pioneer, Panasonic, Sharp and several others do not. I guess it is the manufacturer's choice of chip set. Anyway, whether a TV works on cable channels is often not in the spec or manual, and sales people have no clue what you're talking about when you ask.

So we have to rely on external tuners for our customers who have purchased HDTV sets that don't tune in cable channels. And that's not easy either, as many of those tuners don't tune in cable channels either!

We have found only one tuner to recommend: the Digital Stream HD1150. That is now available on Amazon for $189, which is far less than we can get it from the few wholesale outlets that carry it.

Lucas Valley Cable, Inc.
Herb Drake

[Rodolfo]

herbdrake,

Perhaps you already know this about the unit you are selling to your customers, but here I go anyway jut in case.

Please make your customers aware that the STB you are installing only has component analog outputs, NO DVI, NO HDMI, NO IEEE1394.

Having no DVI/HDMI could eventually put those viewers out of luck when trying to view content that is protected and the MPAA has instructed the program provider to apply the broadcast flag to that program/movie, which could mean no analog outputs at 1080i/720p, if the STB was designed with such feature, the STB would just follow the instruction.

If the broadcast flag is actually implemented this year, which looks as it is coming back from the Courts to haunt us again, premium content from Hollywood "could" be only output via DVI and HDMI with HDCP content protection.

Likewise, the lack of IEEE1394 outputs on this tuner means that a viewer can never record that content on an external D-VHS or DVR as HD.

Your customers might be happy now, but the minute one of the subjects above comes to surface they would realize of the limitations of the tuner you installed, and you should be prepared for that moment, in fact you should tell them in advance before making the purchase, so it becomes their choice.

I am surprised that some cable ready TVs in your area do not pick up some channels while others do. Are these cableCARD units? on-the-clear tuners? If the channel is on that coax wire any cable tuner should be able to it pick up, unless there is something wrong with the TV itself.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra

[herbdrake]

I'm no great fan of the HD1150, but simply have found no other units in distribution. For one thing, I wish the unit had an output connector that had the cable signal when the tuner is off; that we we wouldn't need to add a splitter so the customer could see regular TV. And I agree that it would be nice to have HDMI or DVI. (The good news is that it at least has optical audio). We know that the HD1150s in distribution are very old stock because the remote batters they supply are long-since dead.

The first Zenith tuner did ATSC on cable channels, but then that model went opsolete and Zenith tuners are so hard to find that we never found out if the new unit would do ATSC on the cable.

If you know of other ATSC tuners to recommend that handle cable channels, that news would be appreciaited. But what do you do when a customer brings home a set with a no internal tuner or a tuner that won't tune cable channels? Tell him he has to take it back? (Actually, many do!)

Our system is small and does not yet support CableCARD; We do have several QAM channels with non-HD content so we are anxiously awaiting the ability to offer the card, but we are waiting on Motorola. But the CableCARD would not help solve the problem of receiving ATSC on cable channels -- only QAM. When we start supporting CableCARD our plan is to have some HDTV available on 256QAM. The ATSC on the cable is limited to local channels. While our antenna is on a ridge top, all the homes are in the valley with no hope of using a local antenna.

[Rodolfo]

For some other tuners check this article from the CES 2005 report:

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/20 ... epor_9.php

Many other tuners are in the 2004 that still available, even the 1998 DTC-100 from RCA, a workhorse, is still available at ebay sometimes.

Check the magazine web site on my articles (lloking by my name) and CES reports to get free information about the subject you want.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra