This past Black Friday, I purchased a High Definition television.

The first thing I did was turn on a college football game. Whoa. It was an amazing image. I was blown away by the brilliance of the color, the sharpness of each player. It’s as if I could see every blade of grass, every drop of sweat, each personal feature that is usually lost in the translation from real life to screen.

Here’s the problem. I don’t remember a single play. I don’t remember anything I watched in HD. My mind spent all of its time marveling at the beautiful picture, placing the technology on a pedestal while ignoring the general content of the program.

In researching into a full HD package - a handful of channels other than the basic network offerings - I found that there were several HD exclusive channels. These offer exclusive content; movies, shows and sports you can’t find anywhere else. The main selling point is the HD - not the movies, not the shows, not the sports, but the fact that the picture is clearer than any other picture you’ll see on regular cable.

I got to thinking about the difference between good presentation and good content. We all know the power of presentation. Presentation sells products, whether it’s a classy looking advertisement, a well-designed product or a life-like picture image. Regardless of the true content, these things get high rankings because there is an illusion of worthwhile material inside.

But it’s the content that ultimately keeps the presentation relevant. As the old adage goes, you can shine a turd all you want - it’s still a turd.

A majority of the HD only channels offer great picture and a clear experience. But their content is horrible - recycled television shows that weren’t filmed in HD to begin with, secondary “sports” programming that Versus wouldn’t even pick up, and films I didn’t want to see in the theatre, let alone on the small screen.

Now I’m not talking about network channels, or ESPN or The Discovery Channel - these already have the content, and the HD visual is an added bonus. I’m looking at HD exclusive channels - channels like Universal HD, Mojo and HD Net. These channels tout their crispness, an incredible quality of picture that makes you feel as if you’re right there - in the studio, on the field, etc. But what good are they if the content is horrible?

Eventually, we all get over the image quality. The ironic nature of a clear screen muddling up our view of quality programming falls away. And sooner or later, we stop looking at the television and start looking into it.

I’m hoping this happens sooner than later. Maybe then I can remember a play or two.