DirecTV packages with limited HD channels?

[RonH]

After reading that the AM21 is finally available, I started to pick out my package for direcTV.  However, I noticed in the listing of channels that they appear to have a website typo, or a new method of sneaking something buy consumers.

The "Plus HD DVR" package contains channels like ESPNEWS and FX in SD in the listing, however, when you view the "HD channels" for that package, they are not included.  If you got to the "Premier" package, then ESPNEWS and FX are included in both SD and HD.  I find this hard to believe.

Someone please confirm that you get channels like FX HD and ESPNEWS HD without having to get the premier package, which would mean the directv website has a major typo!

[steve053]

With HD access you receive all available locals in HD, your RSN in HD if available, and all HD channels that have an SD equivelant in the package.  If your package doesn't include channel xyz then you won't received the xyz HD channel.

I have the Plus HD DVR package and receive all of the ESPN's that have HD.

There is an additional HD Extra pack that has 4 or 5 HD only channels, Smithsonian HD, HDNET Movies, MGM HD, and ??.  It's $4.99 / month in addition to the $9.99/month HD fee.

[basshive]

Steve is right on. With the Plus HD DVR package you will get all the HD channels that have the SD equiv. I do not subscribe to the HD Extra pack and have no plans to. I will however be picking up Starz after my 3 free months of it is up. The HD movie channels are fantastic! and they even have a Starz Kids/Family channel in HD so you can record kids movies in HD. Fantastic.

My bill for Plus HD DVR, 4 receivers and protection plan is roughly 97$ a month. A little more than I paid for a fraction of the service I got from TWC.

Do not forget you can now stream music, pictures and videos from your pc AND mac using your HD DVR, another awesome feature!

[RonH]

After a year of hedging, the release of the AM21, and the overwhelming new MPEG4 channels being of good picture quality, I have finally dumped TWC and moved to DirecTV.

I thought I'd post my initial thoughts here since it seems like the kind of things people that browse a forum like this might want to read.

The install was rather frustrating.  I had an 8-12 appointment, got a call at 11:45 saying 45 more minutes.  At 1pm, the tech show up.  The tech was "new", didn't know much of anything but was very good at putting the dish on the roof and getting it aligned properly.  In the end he followed my guidance for where to run the lines (especially since I did all the difficult fishing for him last weekend).  What was amazing is the tech didn't leave until 5:45pm.  So almost 5 full hours to install a dish on the roof, and then connect 4 lines to pre-run lines I had already taken care of in the basement.  The tech did mention it was his 2nd week on his "own".  I ended up missing the entire brewer's game of course!

The tech got great signal on my non HD boxes but the HD box tuners were picking up 85-90ish.  He tried to get them up to 90-95 but couldn't do so (it was cloudy).  He said it was likely due to my fish through the wall containing two 90degree bends.  Anyway, no signal issues so far, including during the rain this morning.  By the way, I believe the cable that was pre-routed going upstairs is all RG59 and appears to work just fine.

Before I disconnected my TWC and box I did a comparison test, both using HDMI and attempting to flip back and forth between the two setups with the same HD channel.  I did a comparison of a NBA game and some discovery HD theatre program.  I would say that I could not tell the difference between the MPEG4 channels and the TWC channels.  I might actually say the fast motion was better under MPEG4 compression (not sure how that is possible unless TWC compresses further, considering directv receives it via MPEG2 I would assume).  When comparing the directv MPEG2 versions (channels 70-99), I would say TWC wins hands down.  Directv channels also have more of a "crisp brightness" to them, but this could probably be setting dependent.  I did this on a 768P sony XBR 40" LCD.

I would say the guide on the HR21 is a bit slow for my tastes.  The standard non HD/DVR boxes are very fast and nice from that perspective.  I also am not a fan of the way some things on the DVR work.  Based on one day of usage, I'd say TWC passport was the best, then directV HR21 DVR, then TWC Navigator.  So I improved anyway over navigator.  If anyone knows a way to speed up the guide performance on the HR21 please let me know.

The resolution switching on the HR21 is a bit odd, I don't like to just pick 1080i or 720p, because my TV usually has the best processors, although the ones in the HR21 kick the crap out of the TWC boxes for deinterlacing, upscaling, etc.  If you don't' have it in native mode I'm not sure how it works yet.  It seems to just leave it at whatever the last resolution was, but sometimes it switches.  I'm sure I'll figure this out soon.

Of course the best part is I haven't watched anything in SD since I got it!

Oh, and I have no phone line at all at my house, and other than a few questions and comments from directv and the installer, it all went fine.

[Bebop]

Don't know which firmware your HR21 has? But DirecTV rolls outs beta almost every weekend. Things get improved with every beta (most of the time).

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=124689