Digital Home Thoughts: Windows 8 Media Center to Abandon Broadcast TV Tuners?

"A week or two ago, details of Windows 8 leaked.... The pages that have been posted on various sites are marked 'Windows 8 discussion, this is not a plan of record', so they must be taken as such and not necessarily as what might eventually appear in Windows 8. That said.... one page in particular caught my eye, titled 'Consuming TV in Windows'. The page states 'Our view is that broadcast TV for PCs via tuner cards will be replaced by Internet-sourced TV and broadcast TV via DLNA-connected tuners.'"

It seems too early to get excited about Windows 8 yet, but already some writers appear to be up in arms about the possibility that the Windows 8 Media Center will drop support for broadcast TV tuners in favor of web-based television. Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows provides "A First Peek" at Windows 8 (apparently due in mid-2012), and does mention that it will likely mark a "move away from traditional TV tuners in Windows"; but that statement is open to interpretation, and is hardly in the category of "We will no longer support...!" Do you currently use a broadcast TV tuner in conjunction with Windows Media Center? And, if so, how worried are you about the possibility that eventually, maybe, some day Microsoft will no longer support that functionality?