I have an HDTV and don’t subscribe to an HD service. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not getting HD content. There are these things called airwaves, which are free! And I also was renting HD movies from Netflix until HDDVD movies stopped being made. Once I get a BD player, that will pick up again. I currently have DirecTV and quite frankly don’t feel that it’s worthwhile to pay to upgrade my dish, and then pay to upgrade my DVR so that I can get overly compressed sub-par service from them. I already get that without paying them an extra 10 bucks a month.

Problem is Cable TV providers want to charge you EVEN MORE for hi-def service. After paying thousands for a new TV who can afford another $50 to the cable company?

I can see that, I have a 1080p plasma and just have standard cable. I enjoy my movies on my PS3 Blu-Ray the HD is just stunning however 99.9% of whats on TV sucks anyway so why spend the money on HD garbage. I know of a few people that have HD cable/satellite and never watch it anyway, and seeing it doesn’t make me want to go out and get it.

what this article fails to mention is that most if not all of the newer HDTV’s have Tuners in them so people can pickup broadcast hdtv for free with just a pair of rabbit ears.

It’s likely that tech savy consumers, like the ones who read CE websites, are in the same boat as you guys who are abstaining from broadcast HD for the above reasons.

On the other hand, your average big box shopper is probably in the dark after their TV purchase, and haven’t been properly edumacated by the saleman what they need to do to get HDTV.

Up here in my market, the big box stores routinely flog HD cable or satellite packages as bonus with TV sales.  Is that common elsewhere?

It’s not that consumers “dont get it”.

It’s more consumer don’t BUY it.

TV programing these days sucks and HD is not going to save it. Certainly not worth paying extra to see the same old garbage show in HD.

“A turd in HD is still a turd”

Yeah, what they said.  I have a very expensive “display”.  It also tunes OTA HD nicely with a 19 dollar pair of rabbit ears.  The tuner gets used to watch NFL, and the occasional network show.  The rest of the time it is hooked to an HTPC, with native 1080 HDMI out. My old 48” RP was lifed-out, so the new LCD unit was a logical choice.  I don’t think most folks are going to shell extra dollars for HD versions of what they’re already watching.  Having BD or downloadable hi-res content on your own schedule is a lot better.  The networks have only changed the picture quality.  Not the program quality.  No matter how much icing you put on a dung-cake, the core is always the same….

HD content is pretty infrequent even on the HD satellite channels. Much content is upscaled standard-def, and the HD content is great if you like watching big construction projects and travel promos masquerading as documentary. (or if you can find a CSI you haven’t seen several times already)

I thought the PBS ‘Travels to the edge’ was great HD, but there were only about 10 episodes and they’ve run the same ones non-stop since I started getting HD in the late fall.

PPV doesn’t appeal because times and selection are very limited and I can get a 3-day DVD rental locally for less.

Why? Because HD from Bluray (or HD DVD) is georgeous. Even upconverted DVDs are great. But most cable and satellite “HD” services commit 2 horrible sins:
1. Half of the “HD” material they sell you is badly upconverted SD - and in fact the average TV has a better upconvertor than most head ends.
2. The other half that is true source HD has had the bitrate squeezed so low that the result is full of artefacts - making the HD look fuzzy and blocky and full of mosquito noise.

To get me to pay for HD??? Then transmit good HD, not bad SD in an HD wrapper!

I have owned my 37 LG now for 6 months.  I have never watched anything HD on it.

Frankly, SD looks great on it. 

My cable bill just went up $5 this month as part of their annual increase.  I’m not paying another $10 extra just to have 20 standard channels in HD, then another $10-15 on top of that to have speciality channels in HD.

I will never pay extra for HD programming.  10 years ago they applied this same business model to digital TV.  Nows its just teh standard in my area.  I’ll just wait until HD becomes the standard.

F you Rogers.

The only reason I have HD is to watch HDNet.  Its the only network that is 100% HD.  All the other networks say there are HD, but only offer hi-def programming a few hours a day.  Its a marketing scheme, but HDNet makes it all worth it.

I agree with most comments above. I would also like to add that most shows that I want to see (for example, March Madness) are broadcast on the local network affiliates in HD. You can receive that signal for free, and most new TVs have an HD tuner built-in. Just by a rabbit ear and plug it in. Really great stuff. If you haven’t tried it, I high recommed it. The other benefit is that the signal is not “squeezed” like over cable or satellite.

I just learned from the comments above that I am not just too cheap to pay for an HD package.  The HD packages are not all they are cooked up to be.

One concern I have however concerns reciving it free off the air.  I live about 35 miles from the mountain top transmitters.  With the old signals I could pick up at least 6 networks from here in the States and then I could get 2 english language networks from Canada and 2 french networks.  Now I don’t get anything off the air.  What a rip off! Now that I am on dish I have lost my Canadian News which is a much better presentation in my opinion. 

I would guess that it would be too much to expect to have broadcasters put up satelite transmitters around their service areas.

I have a high end icd hi-def tv, and do get what hd the cable offers, but like everyone else already said, it pretty much sucks! The cable company offers too many other bandwidth hogs, hispeed internet, long distance telephone service, to do justice to their so-called hd service. When something is actually hd, and not just a crappy upconvert, they still compress the hell out of it, and make it worthless! They need to measure up to the hd dvd video standards if they want to get people to pay extra, and offer content we actually want to watch, not some dumb show about a cook getting dumped in a strange town, and having to get jobs to pay his way. Hd programming should be about spectacular visuals, not lame reality BS!

I often laugh out loud at how HDNet owner Mark Cuban foams at the mouth on his blog about the state of broadcast.  His ascerbic comments about crappy compression are right on the money.

On a positive note, we’re better off for broadcast now that we were 3-4 years ago, and I expect the HD situation will continue to improve steadily.

Unrelated, but remember that 9-10 years ago we started selling HD-ready CRT and PJ sets despite there being zilch for HD content then, and even well on thereafter.

Whats all the fuss about HDTV, i dont see why its sooo great.

I did a little bit of digging on the internet by using the hd/dvr box I have and was able to configure my box on how to recieve an hd signal through it. It started out with just locals, but now I am getting like 20 hd channels for free. I would never pay for it, but I will take the 25 free ones I am now getting.

to clarify, I found the model number on my hd/dvr and then went online to learn the ins and outs. Obvioulsy cable companies don’t give you the manuals to these things because they don’t want you to figure it out.