MGM HD has some pretty poor quality transfers of its films, and in HD one can see every defect; that was very surprising. Meanwhile HDNet Movies has far superior transfer quality and often in the film's original aspect ratio.
I've complained about MGM before.
I like the channel, but their HD conversion is lacking greatly and they do not even bother converting to 5.1 DD.
I think the studio either bought cheap HD conversion machines and are converting unclean prints in their vault in-house or they are paying a third party for the cheapest conversions ever.
$0 was invested in Dolby Digital technology. Original 5.1 MGM films are sadly broadcast in 2.0 ProLogic on MGM HD (at best).
Some of the moves playing on MGM were shown on "the now gone HD channels". Those were clearly different transfers. PQ was much crisper at 1080i and even mono tracks were converted to a superior 5.1 DD re-mix.
I don't believe MGM HD should be in the highest HD tier without DD (and at least clean transfer techniques).
Highest tier HD should be top quality, commercial free, 1080i, 5.1 DD. In other words, it should be superior HD content, superior PQ, and superior sound for our superior TVs and superior receivers for the MOST EXPENSIVE BILLS OF THE HIGHEST PAYING CUSTOMERS.