| reply to fAcEtIOUs
Re: Get on the stick... said by fAcEtIOUs:All the talk about how many HD channels that Verizon or Comcast or DirecTV have is pretty unimportant right now IMHO. Except for about 2 dozen channels(including premium movie channels), all the extra HD channels are NOT showing HD content(either original or syndicated reruns). What they are showing in most cases is SD content that has been stretched or in letter-boxed 4x3 format. Do you get the 100+ HD channels on Verizon (or DirecTV)? Yes, there is a lot of upconverted SD and some of the channels use Stretch-o-Vision, but just about all of the HD channels show some true HD programming. I have channel surfed a number of times through the dozens of Starz, Showtime, TMC, Encore, HBO HD channels and found HD is the rule, not the exception. (I don't subscribe to Cinemax). TMC probably has more SD (non-stretched) than the others. For the national cable channels, heck, I even seen some HD on Bravo HD and ABC Family HD. Of all the HD channels that Verizon added here last month, I think only HSN HD is 100% stretch-o-vision (and that reportedly gets fixed early in 09 when HSN fires up there revamped HD studio - for those who care about HSN).
The bottom line is that Verizon Fios now way out-strips Comcast in the number of live HD channels. Comcast may still have more HD VOD content, but Verizon has been adding HD VOD over time. Until Comcast can shut down the analog channels in each market and free up the bandwidth, they will badly trail Verizon and the satellite providers in the total number of live HD channels. |
