I watch Desperate Housewives. There, I’ve said it. My girlfriend told me that if anyone ever found out I could blame it on her, but there’s another reason.

HDTV.

The contrast and clarity of HDTV programming is stunning. Sometimes it’s enjoyable just to sit and an HDTV program, regardless of the content, and marvel at the picture quality. It’s only after watching an HD program that you appreciate just how low quality SD (standard def) TV is.

I only receive OTA (Over The Air) channels in HD, but luckily most of the programs I watch are on the OTA channels such as NBC, ABC, Fox etc. I’ve been tempted to get the DirecTV HD package for movies and HBO shows such as Rome, but without paying $1k+ for a DirecTV HD recorder I wouldn’t be able to record them. That’s extortionate, particularly as I already have a Media Center PC that does such a good job with SDTV/OTA HDTV.

Back in January there was an announcement that Microsoft & DirecTV would offer a solution (such as a tuner card) for Media Center, but nothing has been announced since. I also suspect that, as with the Cable Card support in Windows Vista, this will only be available for ‘certified’ (read: sold by an OEM) Media Centers making it useless for those of us with existing systems

Would it be cynical of me to suggest that forcing people to buy new systems would be in the interest of everyone other than the consumer?