Re: [tlug] Japanese TV + Radio Tuner Card

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

Pawel Szymczykowski wrote:

>
>I did some more poking around in newsgroups after posting this and
>found that though the channels line up at some points, the lower end
>of the Japanese TV spectrum pokes through the top of the US FM
>spectrum, so that several lower channels are inaccessible.
>

I don't have any really concrete material to offer here, but I do 
remember how Japanese manufacturers were not overly pleased when the US 
began requiring TV sets to include UHF tuners (in the 1970's?).  The 
early sets required a more mechanical approach, with a separate dial to 
handle the UHF frequencies, but then when tuning began being handled 
electronically - not requiring the old mechanical dials - any station 
from VHF up through UHF (Very High Frequency & Ultra High Frequency 
BTW), could be assigned to any button on the TV.  With that, I would 
think that any limitation between TV tuners for the US and TV tuners for 
Japan would be legal, not technical.  If you can't (for legal reasons) 
obtain a tuner in the US that handles the full Japanese spectrum, then 
you might find that the overlap stations are enough (although, while I'm 
quite certain that with FM frequencies there is a simple overlap, I'm 
not sure what the actual situation is with TV frequencies).  But I take 
it that you have someone on this end who could buy a tuner in Japan, so 
I guess that's not a problem.

Something else occurs to me though - wouldn't it work to just buy a 
bottom-of-the-line video device like a VHS recorder and then run the 
output signal from that through a video card into the computer?  It 
never ceases to amaze me how expensive component parts are.  While I see 
floppy drives selling for Y1,000, my last complete computer (minus only 
the HDD) cost Y2,000!  You could probably get a VHS machine with damaged 
tape handling but a perfect tuner for free.  You have to pay to throw 
away machines here now, so you'd be taking it off someone's hands by 
accepting it for free!

Lyle