It could be true, or it could be fabulous trollery. It's worth noting, this was also posted in the Dish Network forums. Let's hold off the verbal beating of the OP until Friday. If it's not true, I just may be grateful enough to not berate him. I've heard just enough about content companies trying to enforce this kind of crap for several years to take what he said as a possibility. Dish has already made very clear (Look at some of the other "DRM" threads recently) that they are going to be (under protest) infecting some of their channels with so-called "DRM" to downconvert HD on certain PPV and premium channels to 480p if you aren't connected with an HDCP compatible HDMI connection. Component users, you are SOL. It's also been mentioned that recording restrictions are a possibility, so what the OP said could have some truth to it.