DirecTV to have 130 HD channels, 1080p movies Later this year

[TheMoose]

DirecTV to have 130 HD channels on 8/14/2008, 1080p movies later this year

From Engadget,

Now this is what we're talking about! On the very same morning that Verizon trumpets its achievement of hitting 100 high-def channels in New York, along comes DirecTV to make that figure look second-rate. The satcaster has just announced that it will be hosting upwards of 130 high-definition channels on August 14th, which means that 30 or so newcomers are just weeks away from going live. All of the channels will be transmitted in the MPEG-4 AVC standard, and if you're curious, it also plans to provide "movies in 1080p" later this year. Included in the new stations will be Showtime Extreme HD, Showtime Showcase HD, Planet Green HD, ABC Family HD, additional DirecTV HD pay-per-view channels and 23 more regional sports networks in high-def 24 hours a day.

I'm anxious to see the full list, I don't have Showtime & I already have my regional sports in HD & I don't watch planet green or ABC Family.
I'm hoping at least for History International, NASA, comedy central & The Military Channel, I'd love to be able to see Top Gear on BBCAmerica in HD but I'm not sure how Europe's HD works.
I'm guessing the 1080p movies will be download, if they don't look & sound as good as my Blu-Ray movies I'll be passing on them.

[kennyt]

More importantly to me the 1080p movies will not have the same audio quality as Blu-ray, it would take far to much bandwidth.

[rlpiii]

It does not matter how many HD channels and 1080p movies DirecTV has if their service, equipment, and pricing still sucks.

[TheMoose]

Originally Posted by rlpiii

It does not matter how many HD channels and 1080p movies DirecTV has if their service, equipment, and pricing still sucks.

I don't have any problems with their service, the only dropouts I have is during thunderstorms & I have less downtime than people with Cox cable, as for price well it's about the same as Cox but I have a lot more HD, as for the equipment I have a very early HR20, a HR21 & an AM21, I've returned 1 HR20 that was a release model when the HDMI output quit working & the record series works all the time & I have remote record which I can use to set up recordings over the internet when I forget to set it for something.

That's not a bad track record as far as my experience goes.
Until we get FIOS out here (won't be anytime soon! ) DirecTV is my best option, especially when it comes to HD programing.

[rlpiii]

I am glad they have worked out for you, but that was just not the case for me.

[PalmHarbor]

I worked for a marketing company in January at Best Buy for Direct TV at that time
we were supposed to talk about over 100 HD channels. With direct tv everything
is in the future but the future is always put off.