When is HD too much of a good thing? Apparently when there's not enough satellite space to go around and some HD has to get eliminated, at least temporarily. DirecTV subs pay about $10 monthly for the DBS firm's package of HD channels and they expect the channels to be available at all times, especially on Sundays.
Yet according to Phillip Swann, publisher of TVPredictions.com, each Sunday during the NFL season, DirecTV has had to drop at least one of its HD offerings in order to air games in HD from CBS and Fox. Swann said HD channels temporarily taken offline (one per Sunday) have included TNT HD, Universal HD and Mark Cuban's HDNet.
That extra satellite space is technically required for DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket PPV package, but some viewers are angry over losing one of their HD channels for the better part of a Sunday afternoon or evening, according to Swann, who said one disgruntled sub told him he got an entire free year of HD channels from DirecTV for voicing his displeasure with the DBS firm.
Swann himself is a DirecTV sub and said he, too, called to complain about losing an HD channel, and asked for a refund. He didn't fare as well as the guy with a full year of free HD, but he did come away with some satisfaction: "After a few moments' pause, the Customer Service rep said she would give me $5 a month off my HD package for three months," Swann said on his Web site.
