Charter Cable has a HD-DVR/receiver unit for $7/month on a lease, so I'll be sticking with them for the time being for basic cable + HD ($3 more) with their whopping three local HD channels (FOX, NBC and ABC), ESPN HD, Discovery HD and those two other HD channel things all the cable companies seem to carry. No Universal HD or TNT HD. I'll keep Dish for standard definition stuff beyond the Charter basic plan and their SD-DVR. I'll use NetFlix for movies and upconvert them with my Sony HDMI-out DVD player.
I went on a business trip right after receiving that great letter from VOOM about the expanded channels and the "refer a friend" offer. Then I get back from the trip ready to call up and get Va Va Voom and WHAMMO-BAMMO no more VOOM at the end of the month.
This is really a big time bummer.
I really thought Charles had the gonads to put everything together and keep VOOM going through at least the first part of next year.
I looks as though he caved in and settled for selling the "VOOM21" as a programming package option to any service provider who will sign up for it.
The trouble is Dish and Direct, as of this moment, really don't have the bandwidth to add more much HD programming. After they get more birds configured and MPEG4 receiver are available, sure, more HD content will come, but nothing substantial likely until sometime in 2006.
As much as I hate cable (from years of crummy service with Comcast), I think that cable providers will likely offer the most HD content (admittedly, still paltry) with a leasable HD-DVR for at least the rest of 2005. I'm not about to buy a 942 that's not MPEG4 upgradable, especially with Dish's buggy history with the old 921.
Again, these are sad, sad days for HD content lovers.
Sigh.....