While it was made apparent in a recent survey that most of Japan doesn't give a hoot about the new terrestrial digital television, o­ne of the primary hurdles to its inception has been the need to purchase a new tuner box.

Since all the tuner boxes these days come in either really really expensive televisions or digital video recorder hybrid doohickeys, people like me with no need for either of those products has been sort of out of luck.

Until today, anyhow. Panasonic finally offers up a terrestrial digital tuner box without all the bells and whistles. Cost? 63,000 yen...

Matsushita Electric Industrial Corporation will release the "TU-MHD600" terrestrial/BS/110 CS digital tuner o­n April 1st. It is Open Price, but since you don't know what that means, we'll just tell you it costs 63,000 yen.

The TU-MHD600 is actually a lower end model of the "TU-MHD500" released in September of 2003, and both models will still be sold. The i.Link jack has been removed, and the D output has been dropped from D4 to D3.

The basic circuitry has also been put o­n a single chip, allowing for a power consumption reduction of 33% -- it is now 10W versus the 15W of the MDH500. Panasonic has said this is the industry's smallest power consumption. The idle power consumption is 0.1W.

Other functions remain the same as the MHD500. This includes the "T Navi" internet connection service, tri-broadcast EPG support, so up to 9 channels can be displayed at o­nce. Using the included Ir System, recording can also be scheduled for supporting video decks. When using the DIGA series recorders from Panasonic, the program names can be recorded at the same time. It also supports a CATV passthru.

The external dimensions are also the same as the MHD500 (so 280 x 292 x 57mm {W x D x H}), at 1.7kg. Video outputs are a D3 jack, two S2 video jacks, and two composite jacks. Also available is an optical audio output jack, two analog audio output jacks, and 10BASE-TX port.

Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20050314/pana.htm

Press Release:
http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/jn050314-1/jn050314-1.html