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Concept
Set-top box
Summary
A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box or receiver and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the source signal into content in a form that can then be displayed on the television screen or other display device. They are used in cable television, satellite television, and over-the-air television systems as well as other uses.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the cost to a cable provider in the United States for a set-top box is between 250 for a more sophisticated box. In 2016, the average pay-TV subscriber paid $231 per year to lease their set-top box from a cable service provider.
The signal source might be an Ethernet cable, a satellite dish, a coaxial cable (see cable television), a telephone line (including DSL connections), broadband over power lines (BPL), or even an ordinary VHF or UHF antenna. Content, in this context, could mean any or all of video, audio, Internet web pages, interactive video games, or other possibilities. Satellite and microwave-based services also require specific external receiver hardware, so the use of set-top boxes of various formats has never completely disappeared. Set-top boxes can also enhance source signal quality.
Before the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962 required US television receivers to be able to tune the entire VHF and UHF range (which in North America was NTSC-M channels 2 through 83 on 54 to 890 MHz), a set-top box known as a UHF converter would be installed at the receiver to shift a portion of the UHF-TV spectrum onto low-VHF channels for viewing. As some 1960s-era 12-channel TV sets remained in use for many years, and Canada and Mexico were slower than the US to require UHF tuners to be factory-installed in new TVs, a market for these converters continued to exist for much of the 1970s.
Official source
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