New Channel Discussions and Impressions

[M Sparks]

Hey, are you THE Dugout Doug? Wow, a celebrity among us!

A few notes...

Cartoon Network...NOT Stretch-O-Vision? Could it be true? It isn't OAR, but at least you can "unstretch" it.

5 StarMax- showing Three Kings...in 4:3. Booooooooo.

Toon Disney- Bizarre...when I tuned in, it was a live action movie in actual HD.

WFN...so, it's an HD only channel that doesn't show HD? If I had any interest, I'd be irritated.

MGM...checked two movies, looks great, high hopes.

Smithsonian...good potential, hope there's enough good material to go around. (I've got no guide data for it past the next program.)

Travel Channel...It was fate...I went to check the mail, and on the cover of the new DV magazine, there's an article about Anthony Bourdain "shooting HD around the world." I arive home, turn on the TV, and there he is in HD!

CNBC...They don't really seem to put the extra room to good use. I thought it would be like a legible Bloomberg. On the other hand...

...ESPNNews...looks cool, but, man thats a lot of stuff on the screen!

Hallmark Movies...I sometimes watch old Disney movies on the weekend on this channel, hopefully they will be in HD. Currently showing a TV movie in SD.

Bravo , Weather Channel, and Disney...4:3, black bars...at least there's no stretch or distracting logos on the side.

ABC Family...I'm impressed, they actually have something in HD right now.

Tennis...looks fantastic. Too bad it will never get watched again in my house.

Bio...It APPEARS to be showing HD right now!

 

[richiephx]

Well, since they are new channels I checked them out. I may watch a small few but overall I probably won't watch most of them. I never watched the SD channels and I probably won't watch the HD counterparts. More is better? I can't wait for March to roll around to see how much my E* bill will be increased to for such fine additions that I didn't want.

 

[Jim S.]

Smithsonian PQ is spectacular.

I'll have to be sure to check it out later when I don't have 2 recordings going. When I checked it earlier, they were running some tiger documentary that wasn't just upconverted SD, it looked like very very bad SD.

 

[jimjo3298]

I had Starz and swapped Starz for HD Ultimate. You get MGM Smithsonian and WFN along with Voom & HDnet Movies. You don't have to have DishHD to get these extra channels.

 

[Dugout Doug]

So what channels do you get for the extra $10 a month by switching to Ultimate.

I already have 250.

 

[memo90061]

i kind of want to get HD ultimate again. im so happy with the new channels.

 

[acousticbiker]

As a DishHD standalone customer, I'm thrilled. One minor disappointment is that not all of the SD equivalents are available on my SD receiver (Travel, ESPN News, Disney channels)...is there a delay in uplinking these, is this an oversight or is was this intentionally (strange) done?

 

[kvnfl]

World Fishing Network! Man O Man gotta get the DVR set!

I was with you, dude, until I tuned in and was treated to a glorious HD fishing show in full blown 100% SD. What a disappointment.

 

[riverdog]

more, more, more

I'm all for adding more & more until someday (not Sunday) there's no SD left......
The new channels are all great I'm sure but I'm still hoping they bring SPEED online before all of the Charlotte stuff this week & next.... (I know, I'm dreamin')

 

[alexgmny]

I have been checking 5 StarMax and the channel is not showing any movie in HD. Why then advertise it as HD channel? Oh and when i say not showing i mean in the next coming week no HD movies.

 

[burgranger]

I love that Dish is finally adding more of the HD Channels.

My only complaint is that they seem to be placed all jumbled together. It would be nice if they would put all of the ESPNs together, the news channels together, the Discoverys, historys, etc.

I like to go to the 9400's and look at the program guide so i dont have to go thru all of the other stations.

Maybe they will reshuffle when they get everything up.

Also they should move the NHL and NBA to the end of the program guide instead of the middle.

 

[Russell Jorgensen]

5 StarMax movies are not in HD. What's with that. They dropped Voom Movies and gave us a HD station with all SD content. Doesn't make sense to me. Has anyone seen any HD on 5 StarMax?

 

[nsps]

I was just on MGM's website and looked at their schedule.

If you love classic movies in HD, this is nirvana.

Yeah, I've been waiting for MGM HD for a while. A great showcase of new HD transfers of classic films. They did a five-film Billy Wilder marathon last month, and I'm hoping to see those films on the channel again soon. Lots of exciting programming coming up. I watched a little bit of "To Live and Die in LA" last night and the PQ looked really good.

 

[richiephx]

Unbelievable...people demand more HD channels then when E* adds them, they complain it has little or no HD programming. Since the majority wants quantity over quality, I guess the majority got what they asked for. Don't blame E* for the lack of HD programming, blame the programmers. The name of the game is still who has the most marbles.

 

[quarlo]

Unbelievable...people demand more HD channels then when E* adds them, they complain it has little or no HD programming.

Yes, the operative term there is *HD*!!!! You know 1080, that actual *HD* resolution??!! Not "Reformatted SD" not "Crappy Downscale 720" ... *HD*!! The masses are idiots if this is what the masses want. Oooooo, reruns of "Froggy the Gremlin" in "HD" - wow, I can see why they want this. Sorry masses, *QUALITY* rules!

 

[aperry]

The people on this board were well aware of the lack of HD on these channels, well before they went live. Every time DirecTV would add some channels, the Dish faithful would post how we have Voom and Voom channels are all 100% HD, so we've got it better.

For me, at least the SD programming on most of these "HD" channels does seem to look a little better than the existing SD channels did. And more HD will come as time goes on.

 

[Sammy033]

Give the new channels time to get things going. We cant all have instant gratification. Not on HDTV anyways.

 

[yaz96]

Some of us already had instant HD gratification. It was called VOOM.

 

[aperry]

"Had" being the operative word ...

 

[kg4ozx]

I just got my ViP622 reinstalled, but just since Saturday the quality on my HD channels looks better. Maybe I just missed having HD, but I would be interested to know if the bitrates went up after they dropped Voom.