Heroes, Global, and HDTV

I am a HUGE Heroes fan. From the very first episode, I knew it was going to be my favourite TV show (replacing a floundering Lost quite easily).

Any TV that is worth watching is recorded on our Rogers PVR in HD, shows that are just on and we happen to “watch” are on the old standard def 27″. Heroes of course must be watched off the PVR.

A little while back, NBC made a change to the time that they were showing Heroes and the Canadian network (Global) that carries Heroes moved it to Sunday nights, A full 24 hours before NBC showed it. I started to record it on Sunday nights on Global.

All was good until a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that while I was recording on the Global HDTV channel, Heroes was being shown in standard def, but still in widescreen. I figured it was just a mix up, and they’d get back to showing HD part way through (quite common for Canadian television).

The first series of commercials came on featuring the awful Bell beavers, Frank & Gordon (really please, these beavers were horrible enough during the Winter Olympics, do we have to continue to endure this punishment?), in HD. “You could be watching this show in HD if only you had Bell ExpressVu”. Wait a minute, is this beaver telling me that Global and Bell have an agreement that Heroes will only be shown in HD if I have ExpressVu? I’m paying Rogers to receive Global in HD, and this commercial is clearly in HD. I thought it must have been a coincidence. The rest of the show was shown in standard def, except for the Bell commercials.

The next week, same thing. Standard def Heroes, HD Bell beaver commercials (can someone please run them over with a truck?) telling me in order to see Heroes in HD, I have to get Bell ExpressVu.

Is this a new trend? Service providers competing with each by striking deals with networks to only show shows in HD for their customers. Is this not the type of thing that the CRTC is supposed to protect consumers against? Maybe they should focus more on what the providers and networks are doing rather than trying to protect us from the “evil American advertisers”.

Some of you may ask, why not record off of NBC HD then? Well, the CRTC has stated that if a Canadian channel and an American channel are showing the same show in the same time slot, the Canadian channel’s feed will be shown on the American channel, ensuring the “evil American advertisements” aren’t seen. So NBC HD will be showing the exact same thing as the Global “HD” channel. Stupid beavers and all.