As if it wasn't apparent enough from our breakdown of HD carriers earlier this year, the two satcasters here in the US have a dominant lead in HD offerings. Still, the abundance of high-def material comes at a cost, and it's a price many are hesitant to pay for fear of stepping too far out of their comfort zone. According to Sam:

"Now that DirecTV is almost at 100 national HD channels, I'm this close to cutting my cable off and making the switch. However, I'm terrified of hidden installation costs (fishing cables, etc.), punching all sorts of new holes in my home, locking myself into a contract and having to pay a non-discounted rate to keep my cable internet around without bundled HD service. There seems to be so many drawbacks to getting a dish -- is it really worth it?"

We have no doubts that many of you have indeed pulled the trigger in a similar situation, and we're equally sure that a large chunk of you have decided to play it safe and stick with fewer HD channels (and fewer battle scars on your siding). We can definitely see this one getting heated, but make sure you speak your mind on the matter in comments below.

[Image courtesy of Flickr]

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If HD DVD and Blu-ray aren't your style, don't forget that there is plenty of red-laser high definition DVD loving to be had. VMD, which claims to be able to use up to 20 layers and hold as much as 100GB of data is still on it's way. NME has announced that more than 100 titles will be released this year for the format, however no information on what those titles are is currently available other than that they will include several Broadway shows.

They also say the price of the players and the media will be comparable to current DVDs. That all sounds well and great, but with all the studios supporting copy protected blue-laser formats we'll see if VMD is the little disc that could.