More aptly known as an ATSC receiver, an ATSC tuner (Advanced Television Systems Committee) receives digital TV signals that are broadcast over the air via local TV stations. After these signals are captured, your TV then decodes the them and displays them on screen and through your speakers. As of March 1st, 2007, the U.S. government set a mandate on all TVs, regardless of size, to include a built-in ATSC DTV tuner.

How it works?

An ATSC tuner generates audio and video from the transport stream it receives. The tuner itself provides various functions in order for the signal to be translated just right:

• AV synchronization - this is the component that makes sure the video and audio play with correct timing and stay in sync, so that neither of the two lag behind each other.
• Decompression - When digital signals are sent over the air, they are compressed so that the packet size is smaller. This function takes the data is receives and unpacks it to it’s original size. However, because the receiver uses lossy compression, the quality of the video and audio is not not as good as it was before it was compressed. The difference is minute, so people don’t really notice the difference.
• Demodulation - this is where the signal is converted into what the TV can produce, which is the video and audio you see and hear.
• Error correction - Although not mandatory in the U.S., this functions helps to correct any missing data from the signal, such as interference. This works by adding some extra filler to the signal before it’s received, so it helps correct any loss of data there may have originally been.
• Image reformatting - This makes sure that the image is formatted in such a way that it will display correctly on your TV set, as there are many different screen sizes and other important factors in determining how to display the picture.
• Transport-stream demultiplexing - This takes the original signal the ATSC tuner receives and sorts out the individual signals, as the TV station combines multiple digital signals into one signal before broadcasting. Essentially, this function just takes those combined signals back apart.
• Selective tuning - This is where the RF (Radio Frequency) channel is selected out of the others, picking out the good signals from the out-of-band signals.

It should be noted that TVs aren’t the only components that may contain an ATSC tuner. VCRs, DVRs, and other TV top devices may contain them as well.

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