I can verify that these channels are now 1080i with Dolby Digital audio on DIRECTV. The difference is night and day. This is a 100% improvement over the 720p bit starved mess that they were before.
While this statement is true, it has been proven that channels 2-6 are not well suited for ATSC transmission as they are too prone to interference. There are some that suggest that post-transition we could be dealing with a spectrum of 7-51.