The big lie called High Definition

First, a quick hello to the many people around Maine who have written to me directly over the past few weeks with questions. It is nice to know that people are reading and learning from what I have written, and that if I have not covered a specific topic in enough detail, they write to me to discuss things further.

I was going to start posting the questions and answers on this blog but it was a bit overwhelming.

Anyway, I subscribed to cable high def to see what was going on with that. I'll be canceling soon.

Here's the big lie. While I know all cable companies are different, the basic HD package on my cable system offers TBS, TNT, and then a bunch of what I call reality TV channels for $10.95 a month. I don't get USA, A&E, History Channel, and any other channel that is what I call "watchable" on a regular basis. Not only are these channels not in the basic package, they are not even in the "Ultra" package which is where they have HDNet and WealthTV. Two years ago I had the whole Ultra package and enjoyed HDNet, and HDNet Movies, but they charged yet another $15.95 or something like that.

So for the money I am paying for cable HD, I get 2 channels that are worth it. I don't really need the Outdoor Channel in HD and most of the other channels, like Discovery, HGTV, etc. don't really have true HD programming. It is mostly old technology that has been stretched to fit your screen. Some of the channels don't even bother doing that and if you look closely you will see that they don't even fit the 16:9 ratio, there are extra black pillars on the side that you don't notice unless you really look. It's just cheesy TV.

So I'm done. My cable company doesn't offer anything worth paying for and I'm going back to basic cable (channel 2-26). I would go totally cable free but they haven't even perfected HD broadcasting over the air yet so I need to rely on something.

When will this industry get its act together and give people what they want. High Definition TV consisting of the same damn channels we have on analog TV. It's not that difficult.