Digital Home Thoughts: Comcast to Expand HD Line-up

"Once I took the high-def plunge last fall, I was dismayed to find how little HD programming there actually was. Cable and satellite companies are aware of the relative paucity of HD options and are scrambling to offer more. At a press conference I attended at CES early this year, DIRECTV proudly announced that it would have 100 HD channels available by year end. Comcast is trying to trump its competitor by saying that it will have over 800 HD channels by the end of 2008, according to TVPredictions.com. Comcast hopes to have half of those 800 channels in place by year end, but the majority of those will be channels by the loosest definition only. Pay-per-view channels showing a single movie in an endless loop will count as a channel, as will offshoots of popular cable shows (e.g., one channel devoted to showing episodes of CSI). Categorizing channels in that manner is an easy way to score a quick PR victory by claiming you have more channels than your competitor, but it is not necessarily illustrative of the amount of HD programming available. "

I've also been disappointed with Comcast's current HD line-up, especially since I have to pay a premium to get it. If you are not into sports and don't get the premium movie channels, you are basically left with the 4 networks, TNT (I think), and National Geographic. Personally, I'd really like to see Sci-Fi channel and Cartoon Network added to the line-up. Pay-per-view does NOT count as a channel!