"We're seeing a lot more competition. Verizon is taking video customers from us," Burke said.

The emergence of triple-play services from telcos Verizon and AT&T has escalated the war between communications providers. While cable once only had to watch out for the satcasters, it now has to worry about telco services which are moving into their territories with aggressive offerings.

For instance, Verizon's FiOS offers nearly 30 High-Definition channels in most markets, a few more than Comcast. At this time, Verizon is only available in about five percent of Comcast markets, according to Burke, as reported by Reuters. But that's expected to change soon.

Comcast now has 24 million subscribers, but it will need to soon expand its high-def lineups and other digital services to keep pace. The cable operator is also feeling pressure from DIRECTV's imminent expansion of HD channels.

Silicon Alley Insider reports that Burke said yesterday that Comcast will "get more aggressive" with high-def channels in the fourth quarter.

"So far, there hasn't been a lot a lot of channels we felt needed to go on the dial. But as top 20 channels come out with HD versions, we will have those," Burke said.

Burke added that he expects DIRECT and EchoStar's Dish Network to aggressively target the high-def viewer in the fourth quarter.