[Moogs]

Beware the Ides of March!

Install guy calls: "Yah uh, you know that not only will the existing DVR not work with local HD, it won't work with ANY NEW HD channels that come out from this point forward. And oh btw, I have LNB-5 dishes available for you."

These fucks at DirecTV sales wanted me to buy their BS obsolete DVR, and were not going to provide me with a credit for a new one, because apparently that is their racket. So Do NOT buy a DirecTV DVR until the new one is available later this Spring or Summer.

Meantime, I cancel the old order, place a new one for a standard receiver and LNB-5 dish, and the job number doesn't generate in their system. So the guy can't install anything until there is one. I call back. They recommend trying again (now we have two orders, two credits and a third order coming on our bill - going to itemize very carefully I can tell you that).

Still no job number, so they put a rush to have a human being generate one (which of course won't happen most likely). And the best part is the installer guy is in my area all day, so it would've been the perfect switch were it not for the shitbag Windows system DirecTV uses that I could hear beeping error messages every 8 seconds over the phone.

I never got unpleasant because I almost felt bad for the person on the other end, trying to figure out why the person before them didn't figure out a solution, etc.

Ugh. Will let you guys know how it ultimately turns out (picture quality, etc). the LNB-5 is their new dish, capable of pulling local signals from satellite, not over the air.

[Ryan]

DirecTV has terrible customer support. A few weeks ago one of our receivers stopped working, and the other had this horrible green mess on top of the video (no, it wasn't the television). They wanted us to pay $99 each for receivers that are only a year old. Fortunately, we had an old receiver in the closet that still worked, but it took two hours to get them to activate it.

Of course, the competition isn't much better. When we had Dish Network, they kept charging us for pay-per-view we didn't order, and wouldn't remove the charges. Then, when we tried to cancel, they told us we had to send back a device attached to the dish on the roof. When we asked how to get it down, they said that for $100 they would sent out a technician to climb up to the second story and take down the dishes. Seeing as we were trying not to give them any more money, we got the phone number of the VP of Public Affairs through a friend. A couple of angry calls to him and everything was sorted out, but I shouldn't have to call a vice-president to cancel my service.

And Comcast just keeps raising rates, and when your video quality goes downhill, they blame the wiring in the house (three years old), the television (a year old), your cable box (didn't have one), or anything else they can think of.

[morningstarrising]

That's the TV business for ya..it's not profitable for anyone(Unless your actor).

[Moogs]

Yah we've found DirecTV (despite the headaches noted here) to be FAR superior to anything Comcast ever offered us. Both in terms of picture quality, customer service and billing practices.

Dish Network is a non-factor in my estimation. I called them once to find out about their stuff and their policies and product offerings were a joke. Maybe they've changed in the years that followed but I won't bother with them. They were even a PITA to me when I moved to my new house, and I didn't have their service! They kept sending me all these fucking boxes, even after I told them via email, phone and snail-mail, that the people we bought from took their equipment with them.

Anyway the DirecTV HD has been installed and it seems to work very well. We have the model 20 receiver and 5-LNB dish and everything is real nice so far. We have component (RGB, RW audio) hooked into the TV but once I get an HDMI cable it should be even better. Expensive little bastards.

Question: if I hook my VCR up to the receiver (RCA audio/video plugs), and then RCA to the TV, while the HDMI is still there, will that work? Either in terms of video tape being able to record pillar-boxed or HD signals, or in terms of not interfering with the HDMI signal? I have like four source modes, so the VCR and HDMI could technically be separate but I don't even know if a VCR is capable of taping the signal coming out of the receiver (regardless of its format).

[morningstarrising]

Yes it will work, the HDMI will be on one channel while the A/V plugs will be on another.

The VCR will be recording from the A/V channel tho, so the HD channel won't look the same as it does on the HDMI side(It looks like a letterbox movie vs the full screen)

[Moogs]

How do you mean other channel? Right now channel 3 is the setup channel. Wouldn't I just set the VCR to 3 and go from there? My tv can definitely set multiple input types, but I think everything has to stick to the same TV channel (3), right? For example, my receiver can't be set to 3 while the VCR is set to 4. Can it?

[Moogs]

Regarding the earlier worries about HDMI-enabled screens being the only ones that will work with these players, it seems this is not the case. Some players will have 1080p video, and only that will work with HDMI-endabled devices, but if you don't have HDMI, you can still see a 1080i picture from the Blu-Ray player for example. So hopefully that means people won't have to buy new stuff just to watch High Def DVDs.

Personally, having watched a standard, widescreen DVD on my Aquos, I really question how much better the picture quality is going to be in the first place. The LotR trilogy is simply incredible on this thing. Any improvement a High Def DVD would bring IMO, is going to be like the difference between using a LaCie 321 to edit your pictures, vs an Eizo CG210 or something. There may be slight tonal improvements in some scenes and slight detail enhancement, but really I have to wonder what the benefit could be beyond that.

To me, the big benefit of these formats is the amount of data they can carry. Better to watch the entire LotR trilogy from one CD, than six, IOW. Or, better that we can put dozens of hours of home video footage or tens of thousands of photographs on one disc vs many.

[Luca]

Good news, guys! For people who have an HDTV that doesn't have HDCP digital inputs, you'll still be able to view blu-ray discs at full definition!

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/art...rticle_id=1324

In an important aside, Don Eklund, SPHE's senior vice president for advanced technologies, said that Sony's initial Blu-ray discs — and all of its Blu-ray titles for the forseeable future — will be free of the "Image Constraint Token" that's built into the Blu-ray and HD DVD standards. This controversial digital flag instructs the player to down-res the video signal from its analog component-video outputs to a standard-definition image to prevent high-resolution recordings — but at the same time prevents viewing of HDTV images on any TV or device not equipped with a copyright-protected HDMI digital input. That would eliminate any gain in image quality for HDTV early-adopters who bought displays prior to two or three years ago, when DVI and HDMI digital inputs were introduced. Eklund noted that Sony's key piracy concern isn't with analog HDTV signals but with the digital HDTV signal coming off the disc, which both Blu-ray and HD DVD are protecting with the robust Advanced Access Content System (AACS) endorsed by the Hollywood studios. If analog copying does become a problem down the road, the policy could change, he said — but for now, "we have no plan to implement the Image Constraint Token. All of Sony's titles will come out of the analog output at full definition." He added that other studios still have the discretion to activate the token for all or individual titles.

[dfiler]

Good news indeed. I won't buy any new players or media that doesn't support component HD output. If the rest of the industry goes sony's route, it would seem that everyone wins. I get HD discs in my hometheater. Electronics companies get to sell new hardware and hollywood gets to sell content. Now, If only the MPAA saw it this way too...

[scratt]

Found this very interesting and easy to understand article that explains how the HDCP protection system works.. And how easy it will be to crack... I certainly know that out here in the wild east we will be getting HighDef Pirate movies offered to us pretty much from day 1...

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1005

EDIT - I am not endorsing piracy here.. But I do object to the level of protection that movie and music companies are trying to foist on us which limits our options of what we can do with our own toys, whilst actually still expecting us to pay top dollar for everything they offer..