Apples and Oranges, Comcast-Style

Okay, I admit it--I've been watching the Olympics on NBC in a Comcast market. Comcast is running a game-show style ad that purports to show that Comcast has more HD than DirecTV all the time, at any time. The problem is that Comcast is comparing apples and oranges: DirectTV has far more HD channels than Comcast does, but Comcast has several hundred hours of HD content in its Video-on-Demand systems. Thus, at any one time, you can watch approximately 100 hours of live HD content on DirecTV, or perhaps half that much on Comcast, with several hundred additional hours of recorded VOD content available. Further, a lot of Comcast's HD content is in the form of pay-per-view movies. So, who really has the most HD? If you're counting channels, DirecTV wins hands-down. If you're counting the number of hours of HD content available at any one time, Comcast wins. Personally, I'd be a lot happier if both companies spent less money tossing grenades at each other and more money improving their customer service.