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Comment by pmontra | Hacker News Reader

I agree to most of the points of the post but this

> It does not need a traditional TV tuner, cable or antenna connector or any other remnants of a previous era in TV technology. They drive up the cost, increase the complexity and bulk up the form factor, while serving no modern purpose. It’s time to throw them out.

Even the USA still has free to air TV channels. They are the norm everywhere else. I'm watching news right now on a TV through the antenna connector and the built in DVTB decoder. That's what marks the difference between a TV and a monitor to me.

Edit: spelling.

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In Sweden we have a silly law requiring all citizens owning TV equipment to pay a special fee. I for one would like a large "TV-like" display without a TV tuner just to avoid having to pay that fee. More about this silliness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_Sweden

In Germany it is even worse. You have to pay the fee regardless of you having any devices capable of receiving. It is a flat per household fee. It used to be like you said it is in Sweden now but they changed 3 year ago to a pseudo tax.

I think I'd rather see it as pseudo tax than requiring its own administration apparatus that costs ~18 million USD a year to run.

I would agree but the running costs[0] did not change much since that switch for reasons not clear to me.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD_ZDF_Deutschlandradio_Beitr... (German content)

How much is the fee per household?

In Bosnia & Herzegovina, the fee applies if you have any TV or a radio device, which is just silly considering that like every single mobile phone for the past 20 years usually has an FM radio built in.

Isn't the USA like most other western countries that have access to the free to air channels over the Internet?

Granted, I think a better title/conclusion would be to do away with TVs completely and just have pure monitors with a separate STB, or PC with a TV card.

There are many decent Tuners on the market that you can connect via HDMI.

There are many HDMI hubs that you can connect to a TV with just one single HDMI port. That doesn't mean "the perfect TV" should have just a single HDMI port.

Does every country have the same tuner specification?

There's a handy map on Wikipedia:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Digital_broadcast_st...

Edit: There's nothing technically stopping you from having multiple tuner ICs and using the correct one along with some form of external adapter if there's a difference in connectors.

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