Need help with coax cable setup

When I moved into my house 2 years ago, the cable company hooked me up to cable and internet and phone. The basement has all the coax cables coming into it. there is a big 5-1000Mhz splitter box, where the the "hot" wire attached to a connector and then to a short coax cable that says "PCT.." and then it distributes it to 8 other cables that then take it to the rest of the house. My picture was perfect, so clear.

I changed cable companies and the new company said they couldn't leave it set up like that. So they took out the connector and put in a 5-1000MHz 2 way splitter so that the cable only goes to the 2 rooms I have a TV in. But my picture got worse. Not as clear. Every few minutes the picture with movement is a bit blurry and if you are watching something like ESPN or CNN with a scrolling "bottomline", every few minutes it doesn't scroll correctly...it scrolls as if it is having a seizure or under a strobe light, and then it goes back to normal. Also, as it scrolls its not as clear as it used to be.

Can anyone tell me what the problem is? The cable company said that my picture should be BETTER because its only being split into 2, not 8. Was the connector an amplifier? I don't know what the cable guy did with it so I don't even know what it was.

Thanks in advance for your help.

They sent out 2 different people on 2 different occasions and said nothing was wrong and said they are not allowed to change the configuration. I switched to another cable company (my original one) and its the same and they say nothing is wrong.

I went from RCN TiVo (original and best picture) to Comcast cable box (when problem began) back to RCN TiVo. Always had cable, never have had satellite. I have also myself changed the splitter to a brand new in case that was bad, but its still the same.