It would seem that Comcast will start to offer HDTV to about half their Bay Area customers within the next week. I guess my calls weren’t in vain. They plan to offer local ABC, NBC, PBS, HBO and Showtime. They are in negotiations with the local CBS affiliate, and I would expect that soon.

They will be charging an addtional $5/month for HDTV service which includes the rental of a new Motorola DCT5100 (336KB PDF) HD-capable digital cable box. Lot’s of nifty extras like usb, ethernet, firewire, smart card are all disabled, but it does come with a DVI connector for your TV as well as Optical SPDIF for better sound.

Looks like it may be time to go HDTV shopping …