In the war between satellite dish companies and cable companies I have noticed an annoying trend that is not quite lying, but if I talked to my mother in the same way there would be much trouble. Take for example two recent ads.
One is from Comcast that claims to have significantly more HD channels than either of the dish providers. What they don’t tell you is that a great majority of those channels are PPV or On Demand (or whatever they may call it.) Sure it’s true that I might have 100 HD channels, but when 85 of them are ones that I have to pay extra for? I’m not buying.
The second was an add for Direct TV who make it sound like you need an external source to view HD through cable. Well that is true (you need a digital cable box – you can’t just plug your coaxial cable into your TV) what they don’t tell you is that the same is true for DirectTV and Dish, except in their case you need the satellite AND the box.
Certainly this is nothing new to advertising. But in an area that is so confusing (without even going into different HD formats) these companies are propogating inaccurate information. They must be tarred and feathered!! But I guess I then wouldn’t get to see the new season of Battlestar Gallactica – oh well, I’ll just do nothing except complain a little.
The fact is that unless you are getting HD via an antenna (which is free, unless you need a tuner – which is the case with my TV) getting HD channels beyond the major networks is prohibitively expensive – at least $70 or so a month. And the kicker is that the more you watch HD, the harder it is to go back.
