What is a TV Tuner?

I found a 37in. HDTV on sale. But it does not come with a tuner. How important is a tuner. I will be hooking up to a cable network to get digital.

Answer:
Pay a bit more and get the one with the built in HD tuner, then when you get the HD cable & set-top box, you can feed it right to the TV It's a lot less hassle. Do not get HD-Ready, or HD-Compatible, otherwise you will need something else to feed the HD signal through to decode it for the TV.
The TV tuner (for HDTV and NOT computers) is what allows your television to pick up and change channels.

If you have digital cable or satellite, you don't need it to pick up the channels. But if you ever need to "go over the air" and get regular channels, you won't be able to without the tuner.

Also, in a couple of years when broadcasts go completely digital, and analog is out, you will need a tuner to be compliant.

So, right now you don't need it...down the line, you will.
The tuner is in case you wanna play songs with it so it will be in tune.
All it means is that it is just a monitior like you computer comnitor. You will have to have an external source hoked up to it to have any picture (cable, dvd, video game). Unlike onlder TV (non hd) where they have bulit in antanas.
Thats what the call a monitor. You'll need a tuner to hook up a cable signal. You might be able to use a VCR tuner and then run it to your tv. But then you'll lose the HD.
If you meant a tv tuner card - it's a computer component that allows television signals to be received by a computer.

Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk.

Hope that helped. :)
channels
You can get the raw video and audio signals from the cable box and it will work fine. Just make sure you have matching inputs and outputs on both units, like S-Video and component for video, and left/right channel audio or optical inputs outputs (preferred!).
You can buy a separate HD tuner for off the air signals, and the government will issue a credit for anyone doing that.

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