I called about it at 6 pm Pacific time and the CSR I talked to was an absolute idiot. Dish I hope you read this thread.
Rant mode on>>> I told her that they were having a free HBO preview this weekend and she agreed. I told her I could not get the HD channel. She checked my records and said I have the HD pack, am I not getting HD? I said, I am getting all of my HD, I am not getting the HBOHD. She said, you're not subbed to the HBO pack, I said, DUHHHH (not really), I said, OK, you know that Dish has HD and SD programs, right (long silence) then yes. I said, and you know that you're having an HBO free preview weekend, right? Right. I can see all of the HBO channels except for the HBOHD channel, it is red in my guide, which means I am not authorized to view it, I thought HBO was free for the weekend, why can't I see the HBOHD channel? She checks my records again "well, you are subbed to the HD Pack, I don't know why you're not getting your HD". At that point I darn near reached through the phone and choked her to death.
This went on for 10 minutes until finally she said "HBOHD is not turned on for the free preview". Why didn't she say that 15 minutes ago and save us a lot of time? Anyway, I asked her (now read this carefully DISH) "How can I determine if I want to sub to the HBO pack if I can't see the one single HBO channel that I want to watch?" Silence. So I told her her bosses were a bunch of idiots and hung up.
I know I was not nice at the end but I was so frustrated and angered by her stupidity and lack of knowledge that I just lost it. I think Dish is really dumb for not turning on the HD channel, gee-whizz, they might bring in a few subscribers. Rant Mode Off<<<<
Wake up Dish and smell the $$$ you cheap bastards, it's not costing you anything to switch on the HD for 2 days. I checked out the SD channels on my projector and they suck as big as my locals, I can't watch them like this. Dish, where's the bandwidth? Can adding all the locals till you put up some more birds and drop a few channels/transponder for crying out loud.
I am one extremely dissatisfied Dish SD customer (getting very impatient for them to add more HD too, VOOM is looking better all the time).