HDTV Tuners

High definition TV tuners or HDTV tuners are designed to receive high definition programs by connecting to an external antenna. HDTV tuners will not only show movies and DVD’s at high definition, but will improve the viewing of normal TV. It is because of the improved definition or color and picture quality of DVD’s and programs that make HDTV tuners very popular with viewers.

Television sets often come with HDTV tuners already built into them, these are called integrated HDTV’s. If you are considering buying an external high definition TV tuner for your television, make sure that your TV set is HDTV compatible. A separate tuner may also be needed. This can be either a cable or satellite box for watching high definition programs.

Most people have heard that there is a mandate on televisions to make integrated HDTVs. This is not entirely correct. Certain televisions that are for sale after a certain date will be required to have built in tuners. The tuners required won’t be HDTV. The mandate is actually referring to ATSC tuners. It is not even necessary that TV’s be able to display HDTV resolutions without either an internal or external tuner. This new mandate will not apply to plasma and front projectors. The mandate will not take effect for some time. Until then there will be no change in television manufacture or tuners.

It is important to ask about features of high definition TV tuners before making a choice. If you are not sure what some of the features are, ask for clarification. Make sure that your television is compatible, HDTV tuners may not work with older televisions. Ask your cable or satellite company weather they support high definition TV, as many people find out later down the road that they cannot receive HDTV programs through cable or satellite.

Ask about what kind of warranties are available and what parts they actually cover before buying. External high definition TV tuners are quite reasonably priced. Prices start at around $150. If you are on a budget, make sure not to buy cheaply made appliances. Always wait for specials or price reductions on reliable brands.

One of the most popular brands available is the Samsung SIR-T451. This one is ideal for high definition programming on any high definition TV compatible television. There are many more HDTV tuners available on the market. By doing a quick search on your favorite search engine, you will be able to find a HDTV tuner that will fit both your budget and your TV’s requirements.
Simon Oldmann has been studying personality with focus on the effects of financial planning on health and mental stability. Simon is currently writing tips and advice on smart purchases such as a High Definition Television Antenna

HDTV and the iPod photo: A Perfect Marriage?

They may seem like an odd combination, but the iPod photo could be the perfect choice for anyone who wants to view photo slideshows on an HDTV.

The iPod photo can store thousands of digital photos, and syncs with a Mac or PC via iTunes. It will read any slideshows you’ve created in iPhoto on a Mac or Photoshop Album on a PC and copy them to the iPod. Alternatively you can tell it to copy a folder full of images from your hard drive as a slideshow.

Also, with the addition of an optional camera connector($29), you can copy photos directly from a digital camera and automatically create a slideshow from them on the iPod photo. All slideshows can be set to music.

To connect the iPod photo to an HDTV you’ll need to first make sure that your HDTV has composite video and audio inputs and then purchase the iPod photo AV cable ($19) from Apple. Connect the iPod to your TV, select the appropriate input and hey presto, your slideshow can be seen in beautiful, bright widescreen glory on your HDTV.

It’s worth bearing a few things in mind when creating slideshows for HDTV. First of all, the

screen of an HDTV set has an aspect ratio of 16:9 (length: height) so if you size your photos with this aspect ratio you’ll be able to fill the screen without cropping the photo or seeing ugly black space around it. Secondly, the resolution required for optimal viewing on HDTV at full screen is less than that needed for printing even an A4 image. So if you only intend viewing your photos on-screen, whether on your computer or HDTV, you can save space on your iPod photo by reducing the capture resolution on your digital camera. If you set it at three mega-pixels, that will be enough to allow you to crop photos to the correct aspect ratio and still view them at the highest possible quality on an HDTV.

Of course, the iPod photo can store more than just photographs. Anything that can be saved as an image file, such as JPEG, can be included in a slideshow, so you could even use it to carry around business presentations which can be viewed by anyone with access to a TV or projector.

About the Author: Robert Armstrong is a contributor to The HDTV Tuner - a guide to the kit, the technology and the programming on HDTV.

The History of HDTV

For those of you unfamiliar with HDTV, it is the highest DTV resolution in the new set of standards combined with CD-quality Dolby Digital surround sound. This combination creates spectacular illustration with stunning audio effects, which is quickly moving HDTV to become the new standard in television systems.

HDTV seems like a completely new innovation but actually the system has been around in various forms since the mid-1970s and has developed quite an impressive history.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the trial product for HDTV was being developed in Japan as a way to improve television quality and therefore sell more TVs. The first HDTV system was called MUSE and employed filtering tricks to reduce the original source signal to decrease bandwidth utilization.

The idea of introducing HDTV in the United States was met with mixed responses. In the 1980s, the National Association of Broadcasters in the United States invited NHK, Japan's public network, to present the ideas behind the MUSE system to the Federal Communications Commission. At that time, there were two groups that were adamantly against the introduction of HDTV in the U.S.

The first group that opposed the introduction of this new technology was the Terrestrial Television Broadcasters. They were scared by the possibility of being excluded from the HDTV market because HDTV required more bandwidth (the amount of information sent through a channel or connection) than standard TV. These broadcasters worried because the channels that they already had license to would not be able to handle the bandwidth of this new form of television.

The other group that became concerned about HDTV in the U.S. was Congress. Congress felt threatened by the many Japanese innovations that they saw arriving in the U.S. and ultimately they didn't want to introduce a new form of communication that was owned by another country all together.

With these two complaints in mind, the American government sought to invent a new form of HDTV. Groups of researchers and manufacturers were gathered together to form different teams. Each team would attempt to create an HDTV system that could fit into the existing channels that were used by broadcasters.

After years of work, the separate teams of researchers and manufacturers decided to combine forces. This unity gave birth to a new group known as Grand Alliance.

As researchers continued their attempts to develop this new form of HDTV, they discovered that this new technology would have to be partially digital in order for all the necessary information to fit into the existing channels. With this in mind, they were able to develop a system that was quite different from the Japanese system.

The Japanese NHK version of HDTV was analog but the updated version created by the American researchers ended up being completely digital.

Unlike BETA VCRs and 8-track players, HDTV is one form of technology that is being built to withstand the test of time.

With the decades of development and research that have gone into optimizing the HDTV system, this form of television is likely to endure for decades to come.

About the Author
Mitchell Medford is a popular reviewer of consumer electronics and technology. He has written for numerous publications and served as a product development consultant for several consumer electronics manufacturers. Visit his site or more information on HDTVs, DVRs, and special offers including free Dish Network.