Tuner or Receiver?

I'm not a newbie,when it comes to electronic circuitry,however,I'm puzzled by feedback I'm getting from the AVS4YOU support team,re-their Video recorder program,I have connected a Digi Fusion free view box,to my computer via a skart-RCA,cable,which gives me the option of either S-Video or Composite,and the appropiate co-axial aerial connections,I can view & record all 98 UK Channels,picture quallity is excellent.However they insist that this CANNNOT be done,because my digi-box is a receiver,& not a tuner.I was allways under the impression that a receiver had to have a built in tuner to enable variable frequencies.I intend to give them some serious feedback,as soon as someone on this forum can confirm that a set top box is a combined receiver & tuner.The problem is,that they say I can't receive TV Signals this way,yet I CAN ! Good luck to all Terry.

tblo163 said:

.I was allways under the impression that a receiver had to have a built in tuner to enable variable frequencies.

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Correct. If it doesn't have a tuner, it's not a receiver it's a monitor which is basically a screen waiting for somebody to connect a signal it can display. If you are talking about set top box converters, they all have tuners to receive a specific set of signals and they output a signal at a single frequency that the TV can understand (like channel 3/4 in USA converters).

The problem is,that they say I can't receive TV Signals this way,yet I CAN !

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Yeah, I can remember a few dozen times in the last 40 years people telling me something was impossible, and my reply was always:

"I wish you had told me that before I did it...."

Thanks a lot for that info (I knew I was right,just thought I'd missed something)
Nice to hear from you again!

A tuner is a little metal box, a component, and completely useless with out all the rest of the electronics around it.

What you have is a 'set-top box', which could quite corretly be called a 'receiver', but generally isn't.

I suspect what's confusing them, and us - as you haven't mentioned it here either - is what you're connecting your Digifusion to. You can't connect it directly to a PC, you need a video input on the PC, which usually is part of a TUNER card (hence them saying you need a tuner). You must have such an input card in order to connect your Digifusion to, which is just providing a video outout signal.