How can you possibly build a tuner that tunes and decodes every possible system that wouldn't double the price of a TV set? It might have been possible if the US used the European DVB system but I am not even sure how compatible each of the variants are with each other (DVB-C for Cable, DVB-T for Terrestrial, DVB-S for satellite).
The closest thing I could think of is a system based on IP (with common compression and encryption systems) and you would have to buy the appoporiate PHY (physical layer) module to match up with your delivery system / provider. A QAM PHY for cable, an ATSC PHY for OTA, a Verizon PHY for FiOS, etc.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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How can you possibly build a tuner that tunes and decodes every possible system that wouldn't double the price of a TV set? It might have been possible if the US used the European DVB system but I am not even sure how compatible each of the variants are with each other (DVB-C for Cable, DVB-T for Terrestrial, DVB-S for satellite).
The closest thing I could think of is a system based on IP (with common compression and encryption systems) and you would have to buy the appoporiate PHY (physical layer) module to match up with your delivery system / provider. A QAM PHY for cable, an ATSC PHY for OTA, a Verizon PHY for FiOS, etc.
It would probably work exactly as you describe, for the reasons you outlined.
If they really wanted it to happen, they'd make it happen.