After waiting about two weeks for Comcast Cable to come out and hook up my cable, I'm up and going!
At first I was very disappointed with the picture because it looked just like a regular TV signal, but after playing around with the cables and some configurations on the box I got the system into true HD mode. The cable guy that came out accidentally hooked my HD box up to the wrong component jacks... a mistake I can understand but... don't worry I won't go into too much technical details. Basically the component jacks he used had been disabled due to another hookup I had made.
Because he could not get the component jack to produce a signal, he hooked my HD box to the old RF jack... basically forcing the signal to automatically downgrade to regular cable.
Another thing that bugged me was related to my having a wide-screen TV (16:9 format). Before I got the HD box I was using the regular cable and my TV was able to stretch the 4:3 (square) images to the full 16:9 (wide screen) size so that the entire screen was filled with the image. Because the HD box is controlling the image now the non-HD channels were all showing in their old 4:3 format which left two annoying black spaces on each side of the screen. After I downloaded the manual for the HD box I discovered a setting that converts the non-HD channels into something called 480i and 480p mode. This let my HD box do the same thing that my TV was doing with the old cable. Until I found this I was afraid that I was going to have to switch between the HD box and my RF hookup to solve this problem... which would have been a pain in the ass.
Ok, now that I've got all of my complaining out of the way....
I have to say that HD is AMAZING! I can even watch my local channels (the main networks) in HD mode. It is very interesting to switch the local channels back and forth between regular TV mode and HDTV mode. The difference is striking!
The service comes with well over 100 channels and I did not subscribe to any premium channels like HBO or Showtime. Out of all of the channels I subscribe to only nine are HD. They are: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS, INHD, INHD2, ESPN, and Discovery. The INHD channels are basically channels that show off HD by providing an amazing visual experience with nature shows, old movies converted to HD (Such as The Man With Two Brains) and other things like that. There was also one "program" on that was nothing but previews for up coming movies. Ok, I admit it... I sat there and watch movie previews in HD for about 15 minutes.
If you are willing to shell out the extra cash you can get HBO, Cinimax, Showtime, Stars, and other premium channels like that in HD... and each one of those come with about 5 channels each.
Something amazing about this HD DVR box (Motorola DCT6200-08) is that it has every kind of port you could ever want! In addition to the HD Component jacks, it has Ethernet, USB, Firewire, S-Video, RGB and probably a few others I can't think of right now. The manual even mentions the ability to use the FireWire hookup to plug in an external hard-drive to expand your recording capacity! (No more need to "hack" your DVR!)
I think my only regret is that the Sci-Fi channel is not in HD.
Oh, and for you sports fans... the Olimpics in HD are AMAZING!
-Elsewhere, of the can't wait to watch the Simpsons in HD class
