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Posted by David Levy on 09/30/96 11:34
Jeff Rife wrote:
> > Is it "cool" to spend money on a tuner that will never be used?
> No, and you have the same problem with speakers on TVs, NTSC
> tuners on TVs, and a whole plethora of other "bundled" systems
> (look at car manufacturers for the worst examples).
Integrated analog tuners and speakers of average quality are dirt
cheap, so it doesn't make sense to exclude them.
Digital tuners will be similarly inexpensive in the not-too-distant
future, but they aren't today.
> The fact of the matter is that ATSC will be the standard for TV
> in the US, and like NTSC, whether you use the tuner or not, it
> needs to be in every TV.
I wouldn't be surprised if ATSC tuners were to become mandatory in all
units with tuning capabilities, but I see no valid reason to ever
prohibit the production of "monitors" without any tuning capabilities
at all.
As mentioned above, however, there will be a point (possibly very
soon) at which ATSC tuners will become cheap enough that it no longer
pays to omit them. In all fairness, ATSC tuner prices would have
dropped more rapidly if they had been congressionally mandated to a
greater extent.
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