ATSC tuner

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An ATSC tuner allows reception of digital television (DTV) signals broadcast over-the-air by TV stations in North America. Such tuners may be integrated into the television, or may be an external set-top box which provides audio/video output-connectors of various types.

Contents

1 Technical overview
2 U.S Government mandates

2.1 Analog TV broadcast switch-off

3 References
4 See also
5 External Links

Technical overview

The terms "tuner" and "receiver" are used loosely, and it is perhaps more appropriately called an ATSC Receiver, with the tuner being part of the receiver. The receiver generates the audio and video (AV) signals needed for television, and performs the following tasks: demodulation, error correction, transport stream demultiplexing, decompression, analog to digital conversion, AV synchronization, and media reformatting to match what is optimal input for one's TV. Examples of media reformatting include: interlace to progressive scan or vice versa, picture resolutions, aspect ratio conversions (16:9 to or from 4:3), frame rate conversion. Zooming is an example of resolution change. Commonly used to convert a low resolution picture to a high resolution display.

U.S Government mandates

The FCC has issued the following mandates for devices entering the US :

By 2005-07-01 all televisions with screen sizes over 36" must include a built-in ATSC DTV tuner

By 2006-07-01 all televisions with screen sizes over 25" must include a built-in ATSC DTV tuner

By 2007-07-01 all televisions with screen sizes over 13", and all interface devices which include a tuner (VCR, DVD player/recorder, DVR) must include a built-in ATSC DTV tuner

Analog TV broadcast switch-off

In 2005, the U.S. Senate passed a budget bill that calls for over-the-air television stations to cease their analog broadcasts by 2009-02-17 (this cut-off date has been moved forward several times previously). Following that date, TVs and other equipment with legacy NTSC tuners would be unable to receive over-the-air broadcasts. This switch-off would cause tens of thousands of TVs to go dark and would cut off many lower-income viewers of their only source of television. Lawmakers have proposed subsidizing converter boxes that would allow people to receive the new digital broadcasts on their old TVs. Further details on the transition to digital and the converter-box subsidy are murky, and are a work-in-progress subject to the political process.

References

External Links