High Def and Cold

Man it got really cold last night. -18 F.

I now have High Def TV. It is great. I love the picture quality. I did have a little trouble with directv creating a second account instead of using my current account, and then not deactivating the old receiver I was replacing, and putting me on a new channel package, but a couple of phone calls, and I am all setup how I want to be.

I get to keep my old programming package, and just add HD to it which is great because I have a 4 year old package that they don't offer anymore and it gives me some extra channels that you can otherwise only get with the premier package or the sports pack (CBSCS in particular). Plus my old package costs less than the current similar package.

The new DTV HD Receiver is ok, but I was really used to my tivo and its features. I especially miss being able to switch back and forth between two channels and rewind either one. With the new setup you can only be buffering one channel. Also the receiver is now leased instead of owned, so you can't make any modifications to it. They seem to offer the features I want like being able to use my cell phone to tell it to record, so maybe that won't be to bad. I probably won't be able to stream video from my computer anymore, so I may keep the old receiver around for that purpose, I'll need to test it out to be sure. Also I don't like the 30 second skip on the new receiver. It fast forwards 30 seconds while the old one instantly jumped ahead 30 seconds. Minor things really.

I thought about upgrading to premium with HD, but I calculatd that would be $121.00 a month. I'm not sure I'm ready to pay that much for tv.