How many HD channels CAN you get?

[Skaggs]

How many HD channels CAN you get?

Do you want to know how many HD channels you could get if you switched services? Here's a link where you enter your zip code to browse through the various providers available to you. Best of all, it not only includes cable and satellite carriers, but OTA options and fiber operators as well. There's even a percentage listing to tell you how much content on each channel is actually being aired in high-def.

www.whereishd.com/

[xzi]

DirecTV: 87 (4 locals, no subchannels) - avg. in HD - 55.0%

Dish: 56 (no locals or subchannels) - avg. in HD - 73.0% (obviously because of Voom, which is junk IMO)

Time Warner: 45 (all locals, some subchannels) - avg. in HD - 57.0%

OTA: 21 (all locals + sub channels) - avg. in HD - 20.7%

[shanedude]

I don't have 21 OTA HD channels, only 7. My tuner picks up 21 digital OTA and 14 of those are SD digital 480i.

Also, I wanted to see what Directv had compared to what I get with timewarner as of 3/21/08.

- Per the Directv website they have 74 HD channels (non PPV). Lets call this 100% of available HD for comparison.
www.directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageNR.jsp?assetId=3420007

- Per the timewarner in albany website they have 45 HD channels (non PPV or HDVOD). 60% compared to directv.
www.timewarnercable.com/CustomerService/CLU/TWCCLUs.ashx?CLUID=223&Zip=&Image1.x=50&Image1.y=4

- Per the Dish network website they have 42 HD channels (non PPV). 56% compared to Directv and 93% compared to Timewarener albany.
www.dishnetwork.com/downloads/pdf/whats_on_dish/programming_guides/HD_Channel_Lineup.pdf

These 'real world #'s' lead me to question advertising of Directv who state I can get 3x more HD channels if I switch back to them compared to cable. I can only guess they are comparing the national average HD channels offered by cable providers and that # is around 30 and directv is counting up all PPV HD options they offer?

[xzi]

DirecTV indeed counts their HD PPV channels, and the just added another 10 last week.

If you count all their out-of-market RSNs in HD (if you get the Sports Pack) you can add another 15-20 or so, too, on top of that (they alren't on that page, only their full-time RSNs are). Not sure if they do count though, though. In Albany, we get 4 HD RSN (MSG, MSG+, YES and SNY)