So a few weeks ago i posted about switching to DTV but the 24hr hour , or your locked in for 2yrs really irked me and i never signed up. Anyway...I think i may give it a try anyway if i can resolve these 3 things i have seen at my moms house who has DTV.
1. Whenever i got to a channel on the guide and then select that channel, even if it is a HD channel it will say it is in 480p or something like that. Then i cycle through all the endless scaling ratios, 480i, 480p, 720p ect...it does not look any different. The the intial setting of 480p actually looked like it is in HD. I think in her menu system everything was set to the native resolution of the broadcast, but what it shows in current signal does not reflect it until i actually cycle through them all and select it...Its very confusing and has bugged me for about 2yrs now seeing it on her system...Once i start messing with it i can't seem to stop...
Go into your/her settings and select only the HD resolutions you want, I have 720, 1080i and 1080p checked only.
Menu/Settings/Display/TV Resolutions.
Uncheck the 480 stuff entirely
2. These Cinema HD channels or whatever they are, i think they are in the 100-150 range or something along that range. Is there anyway to remove these things? I will never rent them and don't want to cycle through 4 pages until i get to the next set of actual channels i will watch... I imagine you can create custom faviorites list as i can do on my hopper also, but what i don't like about that is that if you are always on your favorites setup, you have no idea really when they are offering free previews of pay channels like HBO/Cinemax ect...
You can set up several Custom Guides, this will eliminate the PPV movie channels if you decide.
3. I "think" i "remember" getting bombarded with ads everywhere int he guide, not sure if this is correct. Maybe someone can elaborate on it...
D* does manage to clutter up the guide a bit with advertisement from time to time, I actually don't see them anymore.
If it helps she has a HR24, if i switch I will be getting the HR44
Thanks!
As for HBO and whatnot Freevues
Check here and you'll see that there is typically a Sticky Thread stating whats in Free mode a week or so ahead of time and thruout the Freevue.