does any tv come with a built in digital tuner? a tv salesman told me you have to buy the box for any tv.?

Question

we are on direct tv and was sent a card saying that Feb. 16 we will need a new box to recieve the signal.

Answer 1

ALL TVs now sold have ATSC, which is better than the Digital Tuner.....


Digital tuners only output a 480 signal, but get all the DIGITAL stations.....

ATSC tuners get HD signals from all the Digital Stations....

Now, SINCE you have Direct TV, you won't even be using the Tuner at all.....your LOW DEF box uses Video input jacks on the back of the TV set because the box IS THE TUNER !!

And if they say they need to swap the box out...and it's FREE....

Do it......

Answer 2

if you NEED a new TV the consodering one with a freeview tuner probably makes sense... whether you need HD TV is arguable. Freeview HD trails are taking plaxce but there is no committmenmt as to when a freeview HD service will be available. If you are a Sky subscriber, and you want to watch HD TV then an HD tv is a neccessity... mind you if you have a SKY box then getting a digital tuner is irrelevant.. all the channels you can get on Freeview are available on the Sky platform) and also cable (NTL/Virgin Media) you can get an freeview decoder box for anywhere between £20 & £100... some of the freeview channels are subscription only, the UK TV channels, except UK TV History... if you want to watch those then you need a decoder which allows the use of a card... I've yet to see a digital TV with a card slot that will decrypt UK TV channels. There is no reason why you cant buy a cheap freeview decoder and connect it to your existing TV...The only issue is that you will have yet another box, yet another remote, yet another power supply connected to the mains. In fact I'd suggest that its a good idea to do this anyway and have a look at freeview and decide if thats 'good enough' for you, or if you want to go down the cable or Sky route. The freeview box can be used for another TV if you do decide to replace your TV with a digital decoder.

Answer 3

Almost all new TVs that are sold now have a digital tuner built in to them. After 2/17/09 older TVs that don't have a digital tuner will need a converter box to receive over the air (OTA) signals.

This doesn't apply to Direct TV. Direct TV signals are already digital, if you have been using it with an older TV, then your receiver has a convert built into it already. If you are getting "HD" signals, then you are getting them through something like a HDMI cable which bypasses the tuners in the TV.

Who sent you the card and what exactly does it say? What model satillite receiver do you have?

Is it possible that the card says that you will need a new satellite box before 2/16/2009? If you get local channels with an OTA antenna attached to your satellite receiver, it probably means that your old satellite receiver only has an analog (NTSC) TV tuner and to keep receiving local channels the same way you have been, you would need to replace your current satellite receiver with one that has a digital (ATSC) tuner.