Don't get me wrong, I love my HD sports. However, like many others, it is disappointing to see the news release mention that 23 new HD channels are RSN's. I watch MLBEI every day and see many games in HD prior to D11. I don't see a need to even count RSN's as "official" HD channels when most of them only broadcast in HD for their live sporting events. Of course, if we required a station to broadcast at least 12 hours of the day in HD (non-stretch-o-vision) before they could be called an "official" HD station, the list that now numbers over 100 would be drastically reduced.
D* should be broadcasting all of the available national HD channels before even thinking about adding any additional RSN's. I know that there are some of the national channels that I probably would never watch, but it is the principal of the issue as far as I'm concerned. I was a FiOS customer (along with basic D* for my sports packages) until last fall when the Fox Business Channel was launched. When FiOS failed to add the HD channel along with the SD channel (as D* did) it said a lot to me regarding the future of their HD efforts. I mean, they are supposed to have this limitless fiber bandwidth and can't add the HD Fox Business Channel when it launches? Turns out that there are many limits with regard to central office equipment that must also be in place in the regions in order to realize the capabilities of the fiber network and all regions aren't ramped up at the same time. Plus, with their reluctance to add MLBEI at all, let alone all of the HD games that D* includes in their MLBEI package (with superfan add on of course) and the fact that they can't even touch NFLST for at least a few more years, I had all of the information I needed to cause me to disconnect FiOS.
Now, if FiOS equals or betters D* in the national HD market offerings, I would definitely consider going back to them and cutting back to a basic D* package that would allow me to continue to get my sports fixes.
Like many others have said, the next few months should be very interesting as speculation becomes reality for our various content providers!