There are a few reasons for someone to be attracted to cable TV. For one, it's the "veteran" format in the industry and the companies really seem to know what consumers want. Packaging cable with digital phone, broadband internet and the like makes shopping for home services a less tedious and time-consuming project.

The On-Demand and Pay-per-view services are just two examples. You can interact with your cable interface at the touch of a button, and can call up what you want to watch, when you want to watch it.

Additionally, cable tends to offer easy installation and a small amount of extra equipment. At most, you will need a set-top box of some kind (digital cable box, HD tuner, or DVR) per TV, and a coaxial cable.

Currently, the HD line-up with cable is fairly robust, though not nearly as much as satellite's. However, more channels are being added each year, filling homes with HD content.

One thing that makes satellite a great choice is its accessibility, bringing digital content far and wide. Whereas cable isn't available in many rural areas, satellite allows a direct connection with the provider (as long as the dish installed can face the southern sky) even in the most remote regions.

Another big draw for satellite subscribers is the gargantuan amount of HD content that the format offers. There are dozens upon dozens of HD channels available from the different companies, ranging from FSN HD to the Cartoon Network HD. In addition, the signal transmitted over satellite to the viewer is digital, bringing crisp and clear channel surfing to each home.

Beyond HD, though, there is a wide variety of international and local programming available through satellite that you can't get through traditional cable. You get more channels per dollar with satellite TV than through any other format, since local government taxes aren't an issue with satellite companies.

While cable enjoys being the grandfather of the industry, a few critics say it's starting to show its age. In the future, it could need more bandwidth. There are some that hypothesize that the old infrastructure might not be able to withstand the inevitable tidal wave of consumers. More and more subscribers eventually mean more compression for digital and HD content, which could lead to a degradation of the picture quality.

While the bundled packages aren't as extensive as they are through some cable providers, more services are getting included in recent years. For instance, most companies now have deals that bring DSL broadband into your home as well as satellite television. Also, while more equipment is required (namely the dish and the receiver), those are small concerns compared to the many benefits of all of the digital HD content at your fingertips, and the seemingly endless channels for perusal.