...and one more thing: HD-Lite is here to stay, at least for the forseeable future. We might as well stop ranting about it. I think it's good to keep the facts straight (ie. make it clear what resolutions and bitrates we are REALLY getting), but why keep ranting about something that is unfixable? I mean, if Dish really started dropping channels in order to bump up the bitrates, would we all REALLY be happy? Every channel in the guide has it's fans. So what we are really asking for is BOTH lots of channels and full rez/bitrate. How the heck are they going to do that? Satellites only have so much capacity. Sure they'll launch more birds, but they cost a king's ransom, and there's only so many orbital slots in the sky. As soon as they get a bird up there, an existing one is going to die, or if not, a bunch of new National HD's will need to be broadcast (because the other guy will start offering them), so they will ALWAYS be playing catch-up no matter what. What happens when ALL the stations in our guide go to HD? One day that will happen. How many birds will it take to broadcast all those, or even half of those?
Downrezzing and compression will be the name of the game until an entirely new system of distribution is invented, or some really incredible satellite technology.
I've seen full rez and it's great, but for me, Dish comes really close on many channels, especially on my 720p set. DirecTV HD channels, on the other hand, are noticably degraded. I would be complaining much more if I were one of their customers.
What does tick me off is when these guys advertise "better quality than cable" and 1080i HD. They aren't flat-out lying, but they are leaving out a lot of the truth. It just confuses people. Now anyone who visits this forum knows better, because this place has a ton of useful facts about what's really going on. The bottom line is you have to do your own research because everyone is out there to fool you and take your money.