just my experience (Score 1)

I can see a difference even with Digital cable and Direct TV's picture quality. Had Dish network previously and Direct TV was better then that too. (i.e. Direct TV has the better Picture) I do not use HDTV yet so that is not an issue here. I also have outages rather RARELY. in fact I think the cable when I had it was out more then my Dish seems to be.

Doug