On Sat, 22 Nov 2003 05:23:12 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"dave weil" wrote in message


I'm not arguing that it wouldn't be a nice bell-n-whistle, I'm just
pointing out probably *why* it never happened.

David Weil intellectual problem number one. Dave you aren't pointing out
probably why it never happened, you've presented your theory-of-the-moment
about why it didn't happen. You've collected no evidence to support your
claim that this was the most likely reason. You just made up a theory and
presented it as being revealed truth. First time through, you even left out
the "probably". So, to compound your intellectual dishonesty, you've even
been trying to backtrack and change what you actually said the first time
through.

Reading through this post, I fail to see intellectual problem number
two.

Regardless, I *have* supplied evidence stated as personal opinion. You
fail to recognize my niche market theory, which is understandable
since you've never been invlolved in marketing receivers, and it's
been over 35 years since you've been involved in selling them, and at
that time, niches were spread further apart since you didn't have as
many receivers competing and manufacturers didn't generally have as
many models.

And I think that a feature like that wouldn't have been at home in the
cheapest
receivers, but further up the food chain.

Irrelevant. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the receiver
manufacturers have lost track of what a receiver does. A receiver is the
combination of tuner and an amplifier. A tuner should tune the frequencies
people listen to and demodulate the signals that people listen to. At this
time people spend a lot of time tuning and listening to cable channels.
Since it is considered to be perfectly reasonable for A-V tuners to route
and amplify video signals, it is equally reasonable for receivers to tune
cable channels.

Except that there are too many channels and too many different
standards to deal with. And in the earlier days (which is what the
poster was really talking about), this trend wasn't as pronounced.

After all, you've got to have a reason to sell more expensive receivers,
right?

Great argument that points out the obvious failings of your earlier and
present erroneous pontifications, Weil. Even if the cheapest receivers lack
cable tuners in order to make the lowest possible price points, there's no
reason why a useful feature like a cable tuner couldn't be part of more
expensive receivers.

But we wern't talking about those "more expensive" receivers. He
stipulated in the first post that it was the cheapest receivers that
he was talking about, and that's what I've focused my conversation on.
Please don't try to change the focus of the discussion at this point.
If you want to expand it to more expensive receivers - fine. In that
case, I would STILL maintain that it's the lack of consistant
standards of cable and satellite systems that will keep this feature
from becoming standard in receivers. This isn't analogous to AM/FM
tuners because of the standards issue.

You know that if it weren't *me* arguing this point, you would be
making it yourself.

You don't want to open with *everything* under the sun.

Perhaps, but a cable tuner should have been a part of "Full-featured"
receivers.

Once again, you're ignoring both the redundant and the standards
issues. The comparable analogy would be if turntables, cassette decks
and CD players always already had tuners built into them. If this were
the case, we couldn't have "receivers" anymore (or maybe only a very
few specialist receivers). We'd only have amps and preamps and
integrated amps. It's simply a matter of how the development stream
for video has evolved, which is different than the audio stream. Many
things between the two are starting to converge, but I doubt that this
will be one of them, where a TV tuner is standard in all receivers (or
any but a select few). In fact, I think that the average Joe is
already a bit flummoxed with the way receivers have set up these days
(from talking with a few of the average Joes). To add another layer of
programming, to make the remote even more complicated, to worry about
shrinking real estate on the receiver itself; all of these things work
against this trend that you foresee. Also, you didn't address the fact
that my receiver would need a phone jack to replace my current box.

You want to give people a reason to spend more money on a better model, if
they can afford it.

Agreed, and a cable tuner would provide additional perceived value for a
significant segment of the A-V receiver market, and justify the sales of
more expensive equipment.

But then we're not talking about the cheapest receivers any more.
Don't forget the focus of the original poster's question.

I still maintain that the lack of consistant standards will keep
manufacturers from embracing cable box chips in any but perhaps their
top two models, if even then. With the increasing inroads that
satellite systems like Direct TV are making, and their requirement for
things like phone lines to maintain full functionality, I doubt you're
going to see much action on this front. After all, these chips have
been available for as long as digital cable boxes have been available,
i.e. about 3 years now. If these sort of chips are going to be
embraced by consumer manufacturers, it's likely to be bundled in the
new "digital TVs".