Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"I just moved into a new apartment and have been reading about all of the new power strips out there, especially the green ones. I was wondering if you had any suggestions about which "green "power strips are out there with decent joules ratings. And when I say green, I mean power strips that have the remotes or switches to turn off all electricity flowing to certain plugs and with at least 2 plugs that are always on. I was looking specifically at sub $50 because I will need two, but if that is not possible I could be convinced otherwise. Thanks!"
He basically dodged the issue(s). He has no explanation for why the national HD and SD channels look so bad as well.
His implication that MPEG4 provides higher PQ than MPEG2 is a distortion. MPEG4 is merely a more efficient compression format. By stating that MPEG4 will be a leap better in terms of quality he's only promising they will not be overcompressing the signal as they are now. It's all too aparent how well DirecTV keeps it's promises.
As far as the new HD channels go(is it 50, 70, or 150?), I suspect, even if DirecTV fulfills this one promise, we(DirecTV subs)will still be the last ones to get them.