Chances are, you don’t. If you’re going to be getting your HD from a cable or satellite company. You rent or buy the set-top box from your service provider, and the tuner is built into that box–which often includes such desirable features as a DVR and an onscreen electronic programming guide.
If you plan on getting high-definition programming from satellite (DirecTV or Dish Network) or your local cable company, a built-in HDTV tuner is worthless. Unfortunately, this extraneous (for most people) bit of feature is costing you extra. But don’t blame the manufacturers; the real culprit here is Federal Communications Commission. The FCC has decreed a schedule by which an ever-increasing majority of TVs sold–all sets 25 inches or larger by March 2006, for instance–must include a high-def, or ATSC, tuner. While the law may be well intentioned, it doesn’t match the needs of the consumer. Indeed, extremely few individuals would buy a big screen HDTV without paying for cable or satellite television programming.
The one potential benefit of having a built-in digital tuner is that you can get free local HD programming with an inexpensive antenna. That HD picture may also be a tad better than the picture you’d get via a set-top box from your cable or satellite company, which often compresses signals to conserve bandwidth. But if you’re not going to get your HD over-the-air, there’s very little point in having the tuner.
Fortunately, the tuner mandate has a loophole: the high-def tuner requirement applies only to TVs that have an analog (NTSC) tuner. Manufacturers are offering models that drop both tuners, exempting themselves from the statute. The result is a burgeoning category of HD monitors–displays that are fully capable of high-definition resolution once they’re hooked up to an HD video source. While they can’t legally be marketed as TVs, you’ll nevertheless find them in the TV section of your local electronic store and online retailers.
The Westinghouse 42″ VM-42F140S model posted previously is one such HD monitor. By removing a component that is seldom used by consumer, manufacturers are able to provide these tunerless models that passes the savings down to the shoppers. These models are, however, still not very common because of the fact that they cannot use the “HDTV” buzzwords when advertising the product. But if you find these models on sale, don’t worry about the lack of mentioning “TV” - as long as you got your cable box or satellite receiver, you are good to go!
