Speaking of your avg, run of the mill Sony, Pioneer, etc. home theater
receiver...

Why have built-in cable tv tuners never been introduced to these? (or
have they & Im just unaware?)
Again, obviously Im not talking about some ultra-high-end setup, just
your typical receivers that someone walks out of Best Buy with.

They are pretty much designed to be the hub of the entertainment
system.. with just about all A/V sources being able to be plugged
into the receiver, and have 1 output to the tv. So why not include a
cable-tv tuner?

Obviously w/ the cable co's trying to push everyone towards digital, a
stand-alone box is needed, but that was never the case w/ the standard
basic cable.

Because it would be redundant. Many people already have as many as
three tuners, one in the cable/satellite box, one in the TV and one in
the VCR.

I disagree. Obviously it woulda been redundant for some, maybe even
most, but not for all. As the hub of the entertainment center it
takes 1 button press to switch between all the a/v inputs (dvd, vcr,
game system, etc) that are output to the tv. But switching back to
tv also requires changing the input on the tv. Obviously, many used
the vcr as the tuner, but running the signal through 2 devices instead
of 1 never helped the output.
Also, many receivers for a decent time weren't programmable. Meaning
if you used the receiver for audio, you had to use two remotes... 1
for channels, one for volume.
Redundant, maybe... but woulda made things just a lil bit more
simplistic.


Also, with as many as 1000 channels now available, the best
thing is simply to use the tuner in the cable/sat box,

Agreed... like I stated originally. Obviously it's not even an
option to consider now. But was just curious as to why it was never
at least tried in the past.


There would have
to be a reason for the receiver manufacturers to want to displace the
cable box and there isn't any.

Sure there was. Coulda had one more option than the competitor, for a
minimal cost. Before programmable remotes were standard, it coulda
replaced another remote. Ableit not by a geat deal, would made
day-to-day use just a lil bit easier for those that used it.