I can agree with the article. When I bought a house I first wanted to go with Dish Network, but to get HD in our area the Dish needed to point to Eastern Arc. Well just my luck that the whole eastern arc direction is obstructed by trees. So having Cable all my life and moving outside of a Comcast area (which was great after they upgraded btw), I decided why not give DirecTV a shot. After all, they recently launched a new Satellite right? They should be sitting pretty to add more HD. Even though when comparing the channel lineups online (which is why I wanted Dish first), DirecTV didn't have E!, Style, AMC, TruTV and BBCAmerica in HD, I figured what the heck, DirecTV is a big name company, they just launched D12 and I though sure enough those channels would eventually be on their way.
However that is not the case. What happened to DirecTV's direction? Are they just focusing on 3D and PPV? I understand they want to give 3D a shot. If no one gave HDTV a shot when it was just born, would we even be having these discussions today? But just browsing the multi page threads on other sites, and the countless facebook and twitter comments - it's obvious that many people are not happy with DirecTV's HD channel lineup. Sure for many people it's great, but it certainly has room for improvement.
As far as the HD Quality, I have ClearQAM cable to compare basic HD networks like my local affiliates. The MPEG2 cable HD feed is much sharper and looks different. Actually it's so sharp you can see the film like grain in the picture. DirecTV's HD on the same channel is much softer. It's just different, and the image has to be your personal preference. I prefer the sharper MPEG2 picture on cable vs the smoother MPEG4 picture on D*. I certainly see how some may not - a smooth picture without the grainyness can appeal in certain situations. But in my eyes D*'s HD seems tampered with. Possibly some detail is lost in the conversion from MPEG2 to MPEG4. I'm all for saving bandwidth, so I understand - but picture quality is objective, and you will only notice this if you have 2 providers that you can quickly switch back and forth to view. If you don't, chance is you will never be able to tell.
As far as pointing the dish in a certain spot, yeah that does suck. Like I said, I wanted Dish Network, but couldn't get LoS, so that leads me to HD-Starved (slower but nicer looking GUI) DirecTV. Sadly I don't think they will ever be able to do what SiriusXM can do with silver dollar sized antennas that just have to look up. If so, whoever designs that system deserves a Nobel prize.
So I can agree with the article. The lack of HD is a HUGE turnoff for me. But now I'm locked in a contract. Sure I could break it and be penalized with a heavy ETF... but I have more important things to spend my hard earned money on than burning it on DirecTV's fines. Our local cable co is a mom and pop shop, and they just started adding a load of HD. They are also doing the digital adapter thing just like Comcast did when I had them. With all that bandwidth available, they are adding stuff like BBC America and Fox Movies in HD. Heck, they even have bandwidth to spare on the junk channels in HD like both CSPAN's, QVC, HSN, TBN, Reelz... stuff I woudn't even need. Just the point is when these cable providers finish their upgrades, DirecTV has to watch out. Cable also has watch instantly VOD. None of this download to a playlist B.S. If I could make a single click on a title and it simply streamed like Cable or Netflix, I would be happy. I don't think the wife even uses the download on demand because it's just too cumbersome compared to the Comcast VOD we used to have at our last residence. We have a 10mbps connection through the local cable company. You think that would be enough. As soon as I can get out legitimately, I'm gone... because DirecTV doesn't' deserve my money at the pace they are going now. Oh and where is the HD User Interface for the HR24's? Even cheap Blue Ray players have an HD GUI. Not to say it's required for operation, but hey it's 2011, lets get with the program. At least the text would be sharper and it would give that extra pop that attracts people, just like people are attracted to stuff like Apple products, or certain phones, etc... The UI completes the package.