OK, you gotta pay: a one-time trial fee of $52.50 and basic install charge of $31.50 applies. But World Cup will be in HD though, so that's cool.
What do you need to be HD-ready according to Starhub? Quite lax requirements, actually! See this here: http://www.vocanic.net/hdtv/crs/edm/appendixA.html
1) The minimal vertical resolution of the HD-ready display must be at least 720
lines in an aspect ratio of 16:9;
2) The display device has an interface to accept HDTV signals such as Component interface (Y-Pb-Pr), HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) or DVI (Digital Visual Interface); and
3) The HD inputs is capable to accept the following HD video format:
-1280 x 720 @ 50Hz progressive (720p)
-1920 x 1080 @ 50Hz interlace (1080i)
Wow! The way they say it, means you don't need HDCP! Cool! Ready to record the HD content totally unprotected? This is like sex without a condom, people!
More implications for this:
1) Starhub's HD broadcasts are gonna be WideScreen.
2) The box will have component out (analog) and DVI and HDMI as digital outs! Excellent, especially for the DVI part!
3) As expected, 1080P will not be resolution of choice. As such, a 720P view would be better than a 1080P.
4) No mention of HDCP! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, say that if you successfully get a picture, then later, Starhub gets a directive to put HDCP into their content. What then? Your subscription is screwed? You pay money to get 480P back all over again?
Anyway, you can sign up here. I'm gonna do it now and if I am selected, you'd be the first to know.
Edit: Do you get HD on all the channels? No, only the channels with HD, like World Cup, but all the other channels which don't have HD content will look MUCH BETTER because of the component/DVI/HDMI interface will be a BIG SIGHT better than the sucky composite/RCA interface now.
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