How Do HDTV Tuners Work?
A HDTV tuner, also known as ATSC tuner, is a device that allows the broadcasting of ATSC digital television or DTV signals over-the-air. This is usually used for TV stations in South Korea and North America. These tuners can already be integrated into the television itself, digital video recorder, VCR, set-top box that provides audio and video output connectors of different types.
What Are HDTV Tuners For?
Basically, HDTV Tuners work by generating audio and video signals that are used for TV operation. It also does different tasks like: error correction, demodulation, decompression, transport stream demultiplexing, AV synchronization, and lastly, media reformatting so it could match what is the best input for your TV.
Demodulation is when the signal is pulled off the air and is altered into a more usable signal, which a TV set uses to make quality sound and images. Then, HDTV Tuners also does transport stream demultiplexing. Usually in the US, multiple signals are combined then transmitted from an antenna source to make over the air broadcasts. HDTV tuners decode this type of signal and show it on your television.
Television signals are compressed into very small data packets. It is the job of HDTV tuners to unpack these data, or basically decompress them. The tuners also make sure that any missing data from the signal could be corrected. Thus, it has the technology of error correction. Errors may occur if signal strength is very weak leading to data loss. By the use of error correction, your tuner could do a few checks and could repair the lost data so that you can still have a signal on your TV set.
Your tuner also synchronizes the audio and video signals that are displayed on your digital TV at the right time. This ability ensures that the audio you hear would not lag behind the video or images that you are seeing, and vice versa.
Media Reformatting
Lastly, your tuner also does media reformatting. This is a very important ability because the image formatting of TV sets greatly differs depending on the technology used. For example, you may find some television sets that have interlaced pictures, while others may have progressive-scanned pictures.
Back in 2007, there has been a law stating that almost all TVs should have a built-in HTV tuner that could get high-definition programs just by connecting an antenna. With this law, it just proves that such kind of tuners are now highly regarded and used even by the government.
