I'm at my wits end and I guess, for what it's worth, I'll have to call *D support which is usually a waste of time.

I thought that maybe it was just in playback mode...but now realize it might be worse. Tonight I have been watching CNNHD with my new HR21-700 reciever and dish. MULTIPLE audio dropouts are occuring every few minutes. I switched over to SmithHD and watched for about 20min with NO dropouts. MGMHD also has been audio dropping but I have only noticed it on HD playback through the recorder. Thats what got me to thinking I had a playback issue, but now I'm hearing dropouts on live as well. Sometimes, but not as often, the video will stutter and shake. During the playback of "2010: The Year We Make Contact" last night, the last 5 to 10 minutes was terrible. The video shook violently and reminded me of a video tape starting to go bad.

I've had HD service for 3 years, minus the recorder, and have NEVER seen/heard this happen. I can't accept this at all and it must be resolved. I won't pay for it.

Why would one channel be so bad while another channel shows no problems? Whats the fix for that? I have reset the reciever and recorder and checked signal strength, although I am not 100% sure what strength is acceptable. I see a lot of mid to upper 90's on the various sats. I've also checked connections....I use component cables.

Why is this only happening since the new dish was installed? Installed wrong? Not quite lined up?

Will *D keep coming back until it's resolved or are they going to stall me? before I pay up on my bill, I may demand I pay nothing, dump them and move over to the other guys. That would be a bitch. I really like the new channels.

What would you guys do? Have you heard any dropouts on CNNHD?

I have not had DirecTV for awhile, but when I had it, their signal strength on the STB I had, was based on a 1-100 scale, and 100 being the best.

I would just verify first that all of your transponders are getting a strong signal. Each transponder has certain channels on it, so if one transponders signal is weak, then only those channels will be affected. Obviously, this issue is finding out what channels are on what transponder.

Usually you would have video issues first if you have a weak signal, but it could cause the audio to have problems instead. Try to check the signal strength when everything is fine.....then check it when you are having issues and see if there are any differences!

If you do see that you have a transponder with a weak signal, then you would want to call them and have them realign your dish, especially since they just installed one not too long ago!