BHN to Show Devil Rays Game in HD Tonite?

[Palmateer]

Bright House Network customers supposedly will finally get a break tonight (so far this season, we have only seen the Rays in true HD on the ESPN HD channel) when ION is supposed to show a true HD game on channel 651.

Until now, only upconverted (and stretched-out) standard TV Rays games from ION have been available on 651.

Oakland visits the Rays in HD? We shall see!

[Palmateer]

Well, 29 games into the season, and ION finally shows a Devil Rays game in HD, after all the games shown (on BHN channel 651) upconverted from low definition 4:3 ratio and then stretched to fill 16:9 ratio screens.

And they only plan to do this 5 more times this season.

For unfortunate Bright House customers like me, we don't even get to see the 39 HD games carried by FSN.

On the bright side, the HD program looked great (the only other time I saw the Trop in HD was when Bright House failed to block an ESPN-HD telecast earlier this season, for which I have to pay extra for the HD package to see).

[Roger 9]

Not according to the e-mail BHN sent out to certain customers. They bragged off that the 39 games would be added to the list of ION games which brought the "alleged" total to nearly half a season.

Now we'll get a chance to see if they keep that promise.

[Resco]

Can you post a copy of that e-mail?

Thanks!

[Roger 9]

Sadly, after I spoke to a BHN supervisor it went into the shredder. I had a 20-minute conversation with him and he assured me that he would get on ION's case to deliver.

Sorry.

[Palmateer]

To sum it up:


Here in Pinellas County (and perhaps in other Florida locations), Bright House Networks has set up an HD channel (651) which they labeled "Rays HD Games."

You would think that all the Rays games shown on this HD channel would be in High Definition, right?

You might assume that this channel would include the 39 HD games announced by FSN for this season, right?

Wrong. Most are Faux HD, Phony HD, High Definition for the Stupid!

Channel 651 only presents the ION games. Even worse, most of the games shown on channel 651 are SD (4:3 ratio) games that are upconverted and then stretched horizontally to fill the 16:9 ratio. Roger 9 and I have bombarded BHN with complaints about this so-called "Rays HD Games" channel, so Bright House responded by adding the following qualifiers to channel 651’s menu:

"Games brought to you by ION Media" and
"HD Carriage subject to change."

The only Rays HD Games being shown on channel 651 are the six ION games that are in real HD. The first of these was shown on May 4, and it looked terrific! The rest of the true HD games are scheduled to be shown on June 23, July 13, July 14, July 27, and July 28.