ktmrfs wrote:
waterdawg wrote:
Oddly enough I bought this TV last year and it will not pick up a digital signal so I did a little research and found out that element TVs are being investigated because they are not advertising correctly
there are a fair number of TV's being sold now that do NOT have a off the air tuner built in. the only work with cable or sat signals.
It may say digital etc. which means it will accept the digital input from cable or sat. that does NOT mean it has a tuner for over the air signals. many tv's have that tuner built in. some do not. A quick search on elements TV kinda indicates that it has not over the air tuner on some models, but the advertizing is confusing as to what it really has.
Usually in fine print on the front of the box. And yes it is perfectly fine to sell one like that as long as is labeled.
To be clear, IF it is marketed and sold as a "TV" or "TELEVISION SET" it MUST have a TUNER.
HOWEVER, if it is marketed and sold as a "MONITOR" OR "TV MONITOR" it DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE A TUNER.
The OP gave to little of information to jump to conclusions that it does not have a tuner or what kind of tuner or what kind of video source they are trying to tune in.
From the beginning, if it was sold as a TV it WILL have a tuner, once the OTA broadcasts switched over to DIGITAL ATSC and the ANALOG NTSC broadcasts were shut down pretty much any set sold as a TV WILL have a NTSC (analog) AND ATSC digital capable tuner.
Now, to muddy the waters, cable systems ARE NOT REQUIRED to follow or use the same rules as OTA broadcasts so if the OP is trying to tune digital cable channels they may be out of luck..
Cable systems use a different digital transmission called QAM, it is not compatible with ATSC and therefore the TV manufacturer may or may not include QAM capability in the tuner.
To furthermore muddy the water, cable systems within the last 4-5 yrs are no longer required to provide any "in the clear" and open basic channels provided they supply a basic cable box at no charge.
Because of this rule change, many cable systems have dropped analog channels in favor of all digital QAM channels AND they ARE now enabling the "private data bit" of QAM effectively hiding (scrambling)from any TV with QAM capable tuners that do not have keycard slot.
TV manufacturers also have not standardized how you setup the TVs so every TV model has different ways to setup the tuner.
Some may have selection settings for OTA or Cable, some say TV and Cable, some may say Antenna and cable and some may not even give option for OTA or Cable (these will scan for ALL possible OTA AND cable channels).
As you can see, it is a complicated question that can't be answered without some more information for the OP..
To stop the guessing, OP needs to give the model number of the TV in question and if they are trying cable, over the air or sat as the source they are trying to get..
