HD Satellite programming

[davmoo]

I'm primarily interested in opinions on Dish Network here, because that's what I have. But I suppose it would be no different for DirecTV, so chime in if you have that too.

I've been a Dish Network customer now for a bit over 10 years. Last week I got a card in the mail offering me free upgrades to HD receivers, yadda yadda yadda, two year commitment, you know the drill. Since I currently only have SD receivers, I'm very tempted to bite on this one.

I primarily watch The Science Channel, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, History Channel, and PBS. Every now and then I might pick up something on Animal Planet, A&E, Bravo, or Sci-Fi, but those 5 are by far my primary channels.

What I want to know is this. On the HD equivalents of those channels, is at least some of the programming *really* HD, or is just marketing hype and SD stretched to fit a 16:9 screen?

[mr_lore]

Discovery and NatGeo are going to be very solid with about 90% + 'real' HD. Science channel has some great new offerings but they throw in a lot of thier older shows that actually seemed to be slightly overscanned but not stretched which makes them look OK, but not the best. Sci-Fi is similar with a good amount of HD but also some SD here and there. History is notorious for bad cropping and stretching, cant speak to the rest.

[perxy]

I have both Dish and Direct TV. A majority of their HD programming are shot it HD.