Switched to digital and my picture is terrible...is this normal?

[gobble]

I've subscribed to DirecTV for years but had to switch to cable because my new house has a tree line that prevents a dish install.  I live in Hubertus and had Charter cable installed with their HD DVR.

My picture is terrible.  The non-HD channels are snowy and distorted.  The HD channels are a little better, but nothing like the quality of the dish.  I called and they claimed to be able to test my receiver from their office.  They said something about levels being bad causing flapping.

Can I expect the same quality picture with digital cable as I had with DirecTV?  Will they be able to fix this problem or is digital cable inferior to the dish?  HAs anyone else had a similar problem?

[Tom Snyder]

I have both DirecTV and Time Warner Cable. Other than the stutters and sputters on TWC attributable to the SA 8000, I don't see any perceptible differences with the Local HD channels.

TWC does have a tier of channels that it continues to broadcast in analog that look like absolute crap...Channels that DirecTV's digital transmissions show with crystal clarity. Not sure what Charter does with those same stations.

But the overall PQ of the HD channels should be pretty close... if they're not, it's gotta be technical problem with your set up.

[gobble]

Charter still broadcasts everything below channel 100 in analog.  Things like FoxNews Channel are still analog.

They're supposed to come out and work on the line levels or something, but I don't understand why that would cause fuzzyness in digital channels.  I've always thought that digital was either on or off.  You get it or you don't.  I'm surprised that there is some in between which I'm apparently in right now.