BFG said:
Sounds like dish used some voodoo magic at the show and got the folks their to somehow understand this profound position they have where they can't add more channels without reducing quality, which is just a flat out lie.
From reading Scott's message, it appears that one key point was Dish convincing them that most existing HDTV sets show very little difference between 1920x1080 vs 1280x1080. This can be close to the truth for some sets, and I have written so in these forums.
However the point that needed to be strongly made to Dish is that we are not talking about the past or present, we are talking about the future of HD. The future is that many, many true 1920 sets are coming out and more will follow. 1920x1080 is poised to become the defacto standard over the next 3 years, with ownership of those sets already growing.
One could also point out that there is a visible difference between 1920x1080i vs 1280x1080i on CRT RP sets (even 5 year old ones), Sony SXRD sets, all 2005 DLP sets with the 960x1080 TI chip, and the high end LCD sets with 1920x1080 pixel counts.
It is also arguable that a 1280x1080i image, when resized to 1920x1080 (which has to happen), and then downconverted to 1280x720p will be degradated as compared to a true 1920x1080 source being converted to 1280x720p. Thus even on today's 720p sets, there can be a noticable difference. Although perhaps not noticable on a 20" LCD 720p set.
Downrezzing to 1280 now is not an argument that we should readily accept, or at least agree to. I would not have conceded this point to Dish. Just because the lowest common denominator for HDTV sets are those with a max resolution of 1280x720, does not grant Dish the unquestionable privilege of downrezzing to 1280. Also noone should ever accept the statement that 1280x1080i is an official HD standard, it simply isn't. Dish saying so 100 times does not make it true.
I know I'm spitting into the wind on this because this discussion is now over. But it seems to me that Dish put out an argument that was questionable and got away with it.