If we were going to get USA/SciFi anytime soon, it would have been there by now. There was no advantage to Dish in Delaying it.
They don't pay extra for HD of those channels.
There is obviously some technical problem. A video engineer friend of mine speculates that there is a quality or bitrate problem with decode/encode on the way to the MPEG4 that is sent to the satellite. I know from experience that those are not trivial to solve. Sometimes you need a signal to fit a certain bitrate-format profile, and it just won't.
Is Universal HD distributed in MPEG2 or MPEG4 form?
Anyway, I think you will see Speed HD before you see SciFi or USA. Speed is distributed in the same manner as the BigTen Network by the same people and that is the best Damned MPEG4 HD signal I have ever seen. My understanding is that is one of the few networks sent out natively in MPEG4, which would make things easier for Dish and Directv.
As I recall, Dish tested that BTN signal for about 10 minutes before turning it on. If Speed follows the pattern, they would not even have to test it. Just light 'er up.