Who's got HD TV?

[John Crichton]

I work for DirecTV customer service, so here is a bit of info for ya. The HD package right now only includes ESPN HD, Discovery HD Theater, Universal HD (used to be known as Bravo HD), HDNet & HDNet Movies. The package is $10.99 a month and the offer for 6-months free is no longer available! If you subscribe to HBO and Showtime, there are HD feeds for each major network. HD locals aren't available thru DirecTV yet, but 10 markets will launch by the end of the year (giant cities like LA and NYC and so on). You MIGHT be able to get national HD feeds of ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX from NYC & LA, but we have to beg permission from your local affialates to provide with them, so sometimes you can get them, sometimes you can't! If you get the NFL Ticket in the fall, several games are broadcast in HD each Sunday. That's it for now . . . but by year's end we will have a large HD expansion . . . but the brass won't tell us what exactly that means yet as far as how many channels and which channels will be available in HD. You can buy that HD DVR bad boy in retail and thru DTV customer service (over the phone), but I am not aware of any rebates or credits offered at this point (I'll double check later). Full retail is a cool grand on that puppy!

Hope that helps

Thanks for the info!!

And yeah, it's going to cost me to get one but it will be worth it. We already get HBO so we'll get that feed and my area (New Haven, CT) gets the NY/Boston locals. They are about 35 miles away so I'll need a powered off-air antenna but the channels are there. Enterprise, Lost, Alias and a few others are worth it. I also watch a ton of sports (not to mention daily SportsCenter) and many of them are in HD.

 

[WizarDru]

Oh, and for those curious, I played Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for the first time this weekend....and at 480p, the game looks mah-velous. Easily one of the best looking games anywhere. The only downside is that some images are a bit blocky when you are using the scanner on them, but only the scanner overaly (which may be intentional, I dunno).

However, the models, the textures and the details are incredible...all while maintaining a high frame-rate. Retro has once again managed to create a Metroid game that just happens to be 3-D...and gorgeous to look at.

 

[Mystery Man]

Got mine hooked up over the weekend. Ohh mamma!!

 

[John Crichton]

Got mine hooked up over the weekend. Ohh mamma!!

Sweet. Whatcha watchin'?

 

[Mystery Man]

Sweet. Whatcha watchin'?

All kinds of stuff, but there's one thing I've learned with certainty and that is there is no other way to look at Evangeline Lilly than thru a hi def screen. Omigosh!

 

[John Crichton]

All kinds of stuff, but there's one thing I've learned with certainty and that is there is no other way to look at Evangeline Lilly than thru a hi def screen. Omigosh!

Amen to that. I had the pleasure of seeing the first 2 eps in HD.

 

[Uruk]

Make sure you have a good strong cable signal. I picked up a 42" plasma HDTV. They delivered and set it up with my cable. The picture wasn't very good and I sent it back. Turns out my cable signal is very weak. What is snow on standard TVs becomes more annoying on HD. I am looking into signal boosters if the cable company can't fix it for me, then I'll give it another go.

In lieu of signal boosters you really just need to check 2 things. Your wire and splitter. Lots of houses are wired with RG59 instead of RG6. Somewhere on your wire it should say, but if it seems really easy to bend it's probably RG59. Also, check for the number of spiltters you have. Ideally you only have one somewhere near where the cable comes into your house and it has just enough outputs for your number of TVs. Lots of times they daisy chain your cable in which case you'd need to check every single connection between your headend and you HD set. If your wire is fairly easy to get to the cable guy can check most of this stuff for you. If you're in an apartment it's probably all wrapped around the outside of your house.l

 

[D+1]

I'm still doing research on things like the quality of signal in my area and such. Also, you wouldn't believe how many good websites are out there than can get you the hardware at a good price. At this point, I shouldn't have to spend more than $900 to get all this done. But I'm okay with waiting a bit more just to make sure. Nothing enrages me more than making a big purchase to only have the price undercut a few weeks later.

Yeah. That's what happened to me when I went plasma. Over the course of a few months I upgraded my entire entertainment system finishing with a Panasonic 42" plasma. By the time I finally got HD cable in my area and ordered it for the Olympics a few months later prices had dropped a lot and quality was even better.

I dropped the HD when I moved only a few months after that and don't really feel a need to pick it up again. The visuals can be STUNNING, but there just isn't a lot being offered there right now. Being able to tivo the content (not available at that time) might now sway me back to it but I just don't watch much TV these days period, not even my DVD's.

I had two new DVD's I'd picked up setting unwatched for a week. I watched them both yesterday only because I couldn't get in to World of Warcraft.

It comes down to what you're willing to spend for the amount that you will watch it. That's probably why you're more likely to want it for sports. Big sports fans naturally watch a LOT more TV and would get more out of it ah'm a-thinkin.

 

[John Crichton]

It comes down to what you're willing to spend for the amount that you will watch it. That's probably why you're more likely to want it for sports. Big sports fans naturally watch a LOT more TV and would get more out of it ah'm a-thinkin.

Bingo.

There are 5 shows that I currenly watch that I want to see in HD (one or 2 more that are in the off-season like Rescue Me). Add in SportsCenter and sporting events in general (especially during football season) and you hit the nail on the head. Without the sports thrown in there I'd get significantly less use out of HD.

It does annoy me that I can't watch Lost in HD, tho. Grr.

 

[WizarDru]

Bingo.

There are 5 shows that I currenly watch that I want to see in HD (one or 2 more that are in the off-season like Rescue Me). Add in SportsCenter and sporting events in general (especially during football season) and you hit the nail on the head. Without the sports thrown in there I'd get significantly less use out of HD.

It does annoy me that I can't watch Lost in HD, tho. Grr.

You can't ABC in HD? That bites. Lost looks fantastic in HD, especially with the lush scenery. Getting INHD 1 and 2 certainly is nice, too. They're almost good enough to get me to consider Digital....if only I had a Tivo that worked with it. Hurry, TiVo, Earth only has 360 days left!!