The national network. I'm at home watching my daughter today and I was hoping to watch some Olympic coverage in HD - particularly if it was live. But no.....

You don't get Universal HD? Great hockey game going on.

I still only have Basic cable (due to my internet access) - all of my HD is OTA. I've been putting off my DirecTV purhase for a couple of years - pretty much since the wife got pregnant. But that should change this year. Maybe...

Your HDTV doesn't have a built-in tuner? I can get the cable HD channels QAM/in-the-clear.

It has a built-in-tuner, but the only HD I can receive is OTA. To receive HD cable around here you have to have a digital cable box or a cable card, iirc. And I just have too much of a problem giving charter any more of my money for their meager HD package.

Finally, some Olympic coverage on the network, but it's cross-country skiing until the USA men's hockey game (vs. Slovakia) comes on.

Well, these are the Winter games. The Winter Olympics are not nearly as big as the Summer Olympics, having far fewer events than the summer games. Also, the number of athletes pales in comparison to the number of athletes attending the summer games. The U.S. had the largest team with 211 athletes. Compare that to the team in Greece, and we had well over 450 athletes. Also, consider fewer countries participate for obvious reasons. They have to stretch out the coverage to even make it last the full 16-17 days. That's one reason they keep adding events like Snowboard Cross. Because of that, the coverage is not going to be as big.

I really enjoy watching the winter games, and I don't think the coverage has been all that lackluster in terms of programming (it's on a lot in the night, and I actually have some time to catch some of the events). The actual presentation (especially in HD) is really bad. The compression drives me up the wall. It's pretty great when things are still, but when it starts moving it doesn't look pretty.

I don't know why they bothered with adding Universal HD to my HD package, though, as it has showed very little Olympic coverage. Earlier today, though, I did watch part of the first episode of Quantum Leap in HD, and that was really cool!