Is it just me?

[strigori]

I tried turning on some of the college baseball regionals, but as ESPN apparently does not care enough to send the good cameras to those games, I had to turn it off. Am I just getting spoiled, or does anyone else find watching sports in standard, when you have an HDTV, absolutely unbearable?

[I See Red People]

I find it annoying when there is no HD coverage. I think I am just spoiled!

[AR Husker Fan]

I tried turning on some of the college baseball regionals, but as ESPN apparently does not care enough to send the good cameras to those games, I had to turn it off. Am I just getting spoiled, or does anyone else find watching sports in standard, when you have an HDTV, absolutely unbearable?

It's funny - particularly during football season, I'll watch a "lesser" game over a "better" game just because the former is in HD and the latter isn't. The difference is detail is amazing.

[strigori]

I tried turning on some of the college baseball regionals, but as ESPN apparently does not care enough to send the good cameras to those games, I had to turn it off. Am I just getting spoiled, or does anyone else find watching sports in standard, when you have an HDTV, absolutely unbearable?

It's funny - particularly during football season, I'll watch a "lesser" game over a "better" game just because the former is in HD and the latter isn't. The difference is detail is amazing.

the lack of HD is also what irks me the most about Husker PPV games. Hey we are paying $30, they can pop to drag the HD cameras to the game.

[GSG]

I'll watch whatever, HD or no HD. But the HD is far superior and preferred. I watched the Strikeforce fights on Showtime HD last night, crappy fights, but the detail was unreal. The NBA finals have been kinda crappy so far, mainly because our local ABC channel is such crappy quality, even with the "digital" signal they have.

 

I am looking forward to watching Faber vs Brown II on VS HD tonight.

[T_O_Bull]

Give it a year, maybe two, and this problem will disappear, plus, we are all spoiled, especially you in the under 30 crowd.

T_O_B

[holvy83]

What is even worse is that people will buy these fancy TV's and hook up analog cable to it and it looks like crap, I don't know what is worse, the networks that are barely 50% HD programming, or the people selling these TV's that don't know what the hell they are talking about.

 

I am in communications and this is the biggest obstacle for our customers to understand is just b/c you have and HD TV not all you channels are HD, especially if you have basic cable, it is not the cable company's fault if a show is not in HD!

[BIGREDIOWAN]

While my new TV is HD ready I still have the old DirecTV box and will until it dies out or I get the money to upgrade.

[bennychico11]

While my new TV is HD ready I still have the old DirecTV box and will until it dies out or I get the money to upgrade.

 

you might call up your provider and ask them how much the cost is...if there is anything. You might be surprised to find it's free. I just upgraded mine (Time Warner) and they said I could just add the HD option for free and that would give me all the HD channels I currently have in basic already....or renew my contract and get more channels anyway.

[huskerfan500]

Dam% Qwest doesnt have HD and the internet sucks too

[HuskerfaninOkieland]

While my new TV is HD ready I still have the old DirecTV box and will until it dies out or I get the money to upgrade.

 

you might call up your provider and ask them how much the cost is...if there is anything. You might be surprised to find it's free. I just upgraded mine (Time Warner) and they said I could just add the HD option for free and that would give me all the HD channels I currently have in basic already....or renew my contract and get more channels anyway.

My wife and I tried that with Dish Network and they said no dice. Three times. Each time they told us we'd have to buy the receiver (about $200 I believe). Unfortunately for them, our contract had expired so we promptly switched to Direct TV and got the HD/DVR for free. When we called Dish and told them to cancel our service, they asked why. We told them why. Miracuously they told us they could upgrade our system for free because we were such valuable customers. Wife basically told them to go suck on a tail pipe.

[huzkerbob]

While my new TV is HD ready I still have the old DirecTV box and will until it dies out or I get the money to upgrade.

 

you might call up your provider and ask them how much the cost is...if there is anything. You might be surprised to find it's free. I just upgraded mine (Time Warner) and they said I could just add the HD option for free and that would give me all the HD channels I currently have in basic already....or renew my contract and get more channels anyway.

 

DirectTV will only upgrade new customers to an HD box. Otherwise you have to pay for it. Unless you have a crafty wife like mine who just called, bitched, dropped their service, then called them back for a new customer hook up w/ the HD box!

[HuskerJen]

DirectTV will only upgrade new customers to an HD box. Otherwise you have to pay for it. Unless you have a crafty wife like mine who just called, bitched, dropped their service, then called them back for a new customer hook up w/ the HD box!

 

I used to work at Directv and I can tell you that what you did is quite common. I worked primarily as a technical support representative but could do practically everything else a customer wanted. In fact, the only thing I couldn't do for a customer was cancel your service.

 

When I worked there, every agent had a $250 credit limit per customer. CRG, the folks who could cancel your service, had a $500 credit limit per customer.

 

Think about that for a moment, I was authorized by Directv to give up to $250 in credit, as a discount on their next bill, free equipment or free programming, to every customer I talked to...if I wanted to.

 

Now if I gave away that amount it would have to be justifiable but the point is that we, as agents, had quite a bit of leeway in offering deals.

 

I looked at it this way, what impacted the company's bottom line more? Giving away a Tivo which costed, at the time, $99 dollars or losing that customer?

 

If the customer had even the most basic programming package of total choice it was around $35 a month I think.

 

$35 a month x 12 months = 420 dollars a year the customer is paying.

 

Minus the $100 for the Tivo and the customer is still forking over 320 dollars.

 

So you take the bargin, bottom of the barrel, lowest amount that a customer could pay:

 

320 dollars a year and multiply it by 12 million customers = $ 3,840,000,000.

 

That's almost 4 billion dollars in gross revenue, which is why Directv can afford to give it's customers such great deals.

 

Furthermore, that near $4 billion in revenue doesn't include NFL Sunday Ticket, the college football season plan, NHL, MLB, premium channels like HBO, Showtime, etc and PPV events like UFC, WWE, boxing, football, movies, adult movies, etc that the company also makes money on.

 

The trick to getting free stuff, read equipment upgrades, is to spend as much money per month on Directv as you can and be with the company for several years...the longer the better.

 

To illustrate this let me give you a real life example that I experienced:

 

Customer A called me up and wanted an HD receiver to go with his new HD television. I look over his account and notice that he has Total Choice Plus, 3 existing receivers, he has NFL Sunday ticket, orders the occasional PPV event: UFC, boxing etc and he's been with us for almost 5 years.

 

Customer B called me and wants a HD receiver to go with his new HD television. I look over his account a see that he's been with us for just over a year, has the most basic programming package and none of the other bells and whistles.

 

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Customer A will receive the better deal because he has a higher value to the company than Customer B.

[husker rob]

HD not HD i am just happy to watch any football games where i am at