[opendtv] Re: Panasonic's DVD recorders include ATSC tuners

What's more, if you exclude small items like my front projector, a display often takes up enough space to qualify as a piece of furniture or decor, because you have to look at it. This in turn involve a style price premium, cost of extra furniture manufacturing and shipping, and generally puts it in a different category than something you might want to replace for technical obsolescence. I think that means you might want to separated it from higher tech transient items like PVR's and tuners. The ideal STB is small enough you don't mind if it is also ugly. 

- Tom

Frank Eory wrote:

Bert wrote:


Craig Birkmaier wrote:


Watch while recording has always been possible with single
tuner devices - this is not a big deal. Watching one
program while recording another is what people want, and
this requires dual tuners.



Not if all TV appliances incorporate their own receiver, which is what
they are supposed to do. That makes the most sense, because now you can
have any number of receivers tuned to any number of channels, not just
one or two.

For example, my father-in-law used to have two VCRs and a TV in his den.
Since every appliance had its own receiver, he could watch one show
while recording two others simultaneously, without having to own an
odd-ball 3-tuner, two-drive VCR.

Bert
I would agree, Bert, that all TV *recorders* should incorporate their own receiver, but why does the display have to have one? Even when the display has it's own tuner, many consumers won't use it simply because it doesn't "fit" their usage model of their overall home theater system. Once a consumer has taken the plunge into DVR wonderland, he never ever wants to watch "live" TV again -- at least not live TV that can't be paused, rewinded or recorded with a couple of button clicks on the remote. If the DVR is a separate component from the display, the DVR becomes the focal point of all channel tuning -- not the TV set. Yes, some HDTVs have built-in DVR functionality, but then of course they are no longer just displays, and consumers who buy that type of integrated product have a different usage model than the typical home theater household in which the display is just one of several A/V components.
Think in terms of the spousal threshold of tolerance for annoyingly complex techno-gadgets. As soon as the home theater is set up for optimal ease-of-use with a universal remote, nobody wants to press a bunch of extra buttons just to get the HDTV set to do something (i.e., tune and display a channel) that the DVR is already able to do with less user effort.
The non-display related functions inside the HDTV set -- not the external components -- become the source of unneccessary added complexity and extra hassle -- not the other way around. 


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