My DirecTV HD channels were acting strange this weekend. When trying to purchase a movie on the PPV channels, I got an error message that said I need to use component (RGB) cables rather than HDMI to view a high-def movie. This is ridiculous because HDMI is better quality HD picture than component cables. When I called DTV, the rep couldn't explain why this was happening. She wanted to defer me to tech support. But it was Father's Day and I just wanted to watch a movie, so we put in a DVD. (As it turns out, the error message was just a message I was able to purchase and view the HD movie!)

This HD thing is kind of screwed up. For those of you who are not on Facebook, I posted an article "Reception problems linger after DTV transition" from USA Today that talks about a simple HD reception problem many people have. Apparently the local stations have the option of broadcasting their HD signals on EITHER UHF or VHF. And, depending on the quality of your home antenna you may or may not pick up a station that's broadcasting on VHF even if you have a dual UHF/VHF digital antenna.

I'm having a slight problem picking up one of the local Chicago stations (ABC News 7) for this reason. What makes no sense to me is that the local stations don't have to tell the public whether they are broadcasting on UHF or VHF which is almost like having an FM radio station suddenly broadcast on the AM band while you only have FM reception in your house.

With this glitch, the average person who just bought an HD tv and antenna may think something's wrong with his/her tv when it's working just fine. The good news for me is that I can get the local channels through DTV. But, if the satellite goes down, who knows what stations I'll receive!