Flew on a 737-800 from CMH to IAH this past weekend which was advertised by the gate agents as having "Live DirecTV service". I've flown on quite a few 737-900's before from LAS to IAH and EWR and have loved having the option to watch Fox Soccer Channel and Cartoon Network the whole way. This is not a complaint, but just rather a question seeking clarification.

On this particular flight from CMH to IAH, the "DirecTV service" offered consisted of 8 pre-programmed channels with syndicated episodes of various TV shows and some movies. It was certainly not live and did not provide access to every DirecTV channel (as the information card in the seat back pocket said).

So, my question is this... Are there two different versions of DirecTV programming available on the 737-900's and 737-800's or was this perhaps due to some sort of system outage? And if there are different versions of programming, is there any way to tell ahead of time which version will be offered on a given flight?