As many of us wrote in many threads, there has always been a fear that this would happen. As it has been pointed out on hundreds of occasions, the general public accepted downrezzed and over-compressed SD from D* and E* with few complaints.
If someone is willing to watch 480x480i under significant compression, then how could we hope to convince either DBS provider that it was necessary for them to give us 1920x1080 with light compression?
Also consider than the predominant use of HDTVs has been to watch DVDs. So 1280x1080 is a big step up from a standard that most people find to be excellent.
D* and E* both know this very well. They do their research as they have hundreds of millions of dollars riding on the outcome.
I was hoping that our screaming and shooting might influence E* to try to make a go of it at 1920, in the hopes that their extra cost would be recouped through more subscribers being willing to pay for it. But I seriously doubted that broadcasting in 1920 would actually pull in the hundreds of thousands that it would have to in order to justify the cost. I suspect E*'s research supports this.
I had also hoped that perhaps we could at least get it bumped back up to 1440, I thought we might have a shot at that.
But in the end, the few thousand of us who presently sub to VOOM didn't have a chance vs the "industry standard" 1280 that D* had already established. E* could see that there was not a mass exodus from D* to E* to access their higher resolution. If D*'s HD subscribers had done this, then we would have had a chance.
But given that they did not and that E* was not gaining new HD subs at a significantly faster rate than D*, then why would E* go with a higher standard when they have to compete pricewise with D*?
In the end, the fault lies with the general HD consumer base, for not supporting higher res HD with their dollars. Which is the same reason why we never got good resolution SD.
