Okay, so more about the idea of having a single high-quality broadcast television antenna and sharing it out across the computer network. It is feasible, but of course with limits: such devices are coined as multi-tuner, the limit of course being the number of tuners that the device has.
Again, I reiterate, because this is important! Also, keep in mind that the average entertainment-focused consumer does not care to setup these devices due to the fact that it requires “more technical skill.” So, for sure this is a minority idea for techies only.
So there are multi-tuner devices out there for over-the-air (OTA) broadcast television. So far the largest number of tuners in such a device I read are 4. In practice, such devices tend to be embedded in a DVR that uses an interactive electronic program guide as a means to select which programs to record. Particularly noteworthy is that the modern interactive electronic program guides typically come as a subscription service with a monthly fee. Also, note that you can get some multi-tuner boxes separately from a purpose-built DVR, as is the case with HDHomeRun.
Oh, and apparently TiVo was in fact the first DVR.
Okay, so let me summarize modern TV viewer habits, terminology, and technology in a nutshell.
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Broadcast input: Choose one or more of the following:
- Antenna, for terrestrial broadcast
- Satellite dish, for satellite TV
- Cable TV modem, for cable TV
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Tuner: Get as many of these as you can so that you can simultaneously record as many channels as possible.
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DVR: Get one of these so that you can simultaneously record multiple channels and then time-shift, place-shift, and format-shift to your viewing preferences. The main point of this box is to have as many feature and functions as possible to compensate for all the inconveniences of the broadcast media.
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Automatic commercial skip? Yes please!
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Interactive electronic program guide: Get a subscription to one of these so that you don’t need to learn how to program timed recording into your DVR.
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Streaming device: Get one of these for each TV screen you have, so that each screen can connect with the DVR. Your TV might have included an integrated “streaming device” if it is one of the newer models, but the general rule of thumb that has been observed over the decades is that the integrated tuner or streaming device becomes obsolete much faster than the screen itself. A purpose-built streaming device, by contrast, is much easier to buy, replace, and dispose of as the latest television technologies come and go.
If, by contrast, you are a “TV tech junkie,” you could easily eschew the dedicated streaming devices as you’ll be buying new TVs much faster than the integrated streaming capabilities become obsolete.
Generally speaking, streaming devices are not required for computers such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops, but some DVRs may require additional devices and fees to enable streaming to computer devices, or streaming to a destination on the Internet, not on the local area network.
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Infrared blaster: Get one of these so that you can use the old infrared TV remote to control your streaming device, rather than needing to use a separate remote for the streaming device.
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Parental controls: Although parental controls are wildly popular as of 2018, this is mainly due to a short-term culture shift. It’s clear that from the standpoint of people who are considered “children” in the year 2018, our modern technology has had very little influence over human culture of times past: the culture of parental control is the main influence, and this is true irrespective of the technological means to that end. Put another way, removing parental controls from modern devices would have no significant impact on modern children, positive or negative.
The “V-Chip” was an early purpose-built hardware contender for parental controls before the advent of modern DVRs.
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Internet TV: Alternative to broadcast TV. Provides video-on-demand, no need for antennas, dishes, modems, tuners, DVRs, automatic commercial skip, interactive electronic program guides, and infrared blasters. However, parental controls are still “sold separately” from Internet TV.
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Television white-space Internet: Television traditionally had bandwidth reserved between channels because the old-fashioned analog broadcast circuitry was a bit imprecise and would otherwise interfere with neighboring channels. Modern digital television broadcast circuits no longer have this problem. Therefore, this old, unused white space between television channels can be used for two-way wireless communications for Internet. This is not available in all jurisdictions, but where it is available, modern TV has come full-circle when television white-space Internet is used in conjunction with Internet TV.
Now, here are some more detailed points on modern TV viewer habits:
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Only real “TV junkies” will buy that much equipment mentioned above so that they can watch TV at “maximum convenience.” All other “part-time” TV watchers will consider the full complexity of technological devices mentioned above too much of a hassle to setup, and will instead opt for Internet TV if they want to watch TV part-time, at their leisure and convenience.
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Broadcast TV is no longer useful for instructional material. Then again, you could argue that the phenomenon of broadcast educational material was specific to TV and wasn’t really available on the earlier radio technology.
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In the modern era, news and entertainment are the primary mainstays of broadcast television. This also applies with broadcast radio.
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In the modern era, educational material is almost exclusively received over Internet-connected devices.
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Internet connections can also be used to deliver news and entertainment that is available from radio and television.
20180826/DuckDuckGo multi tuner digital broadcast television
20180826/https://www.groundedreason.com/ota-dvr-without-cable/
20180826/https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/
20180826/https://www.groundedreason.com/turn-a-tv-into-a-pc-and-media-hub/
20180826/https://www.groundedreason.com/about-grounded-reason/
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingbox
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placeshifting
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_shifting
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Format_shifting
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_program_guide
Some jurisdictions place a tax on private copy media for revenue to the entertainment industry, even though the vast majority of such media is used in the computing industry for non-entertainment work.
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying
The go-to for a modern libre software DVR X-Y-Z: MythTV.
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythTV
Parental controls are very popular in the modern era, but traditionalists worry that the control leveraged by modern parental controls has gone too far.
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_control
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultism
Also, indeed, in case there is any question, ATSC in the United States still does use some VHF band transmissions. The total band space spcified that it might use: VHF, UHF, and SHF.
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_standards
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_tuner
ATSC 3.0 brings 4K broadcast TV, so we are told.
20180826/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_3.0