I've had HD cable service for about 8 months via a CableCard. About 1 month ago, I started getting bad blocking/tiling/pixellation. (Not sure the correct term.) Nothing has changed in my house and it is new construction.

- It seems to be most severe in the primetime hours.
- Certain channels like Discovery HD or FoodTV HD are flawless all the time.
- Certain stations like NBCHD are tiled all the time for the most part.

What would cause this? I'd like to be somewhat informed when the cable guy comes this week. They already sent someone out to "try and boost the signal." Why would it work and then suddenly become unwatchable?

If this is the wrong forum, apologies.

If this problem started only recently, and you haven't changed anything (e.g., split the line to another TV), it seems hard to believe signal strength into your home would be the problem. The pixellation you describe could be caused by any number of things. Since the problem you describe is from one of the networks, you might ask your cable company how they get that signal. Some companies pick up network signals OTA and redistribute it - if they are having problems with their reception, that will get passed down the line to you. I've also seen problems with pixellation on network stations occuring simultaneously from OTA reception and D*, suggesting the problem is at the network station providing the signal. Another possibility, since this occurs in primetime hours when HD content would be the highest, is your cable company is restricting the bandwidth for some channels to allow them to carry more content.

Ross

I suspect the latter. :) They have 28 HD channels.

Last night was the first night where all HD channels came in without pixellation. Perhaps my service call lit a bulb over someone's head. Or perhaps it was just an anomoly last night. We'll see.