Does Time Warner bite?

I have been a fairly contented customer of Time Warner Cable for around thrity years now. My family was one of the first to get Warner's Qube network back in the late 70's, a cable system with an interactive component, and ever since, whenever I've had cable, I've had Time Warner Cable, at first because they were the only choice in my neighborhood and later out of true choice (and because right now we're bundled with their RoadRunner internet access).

But I'm on the verge of leaving them. For the past two or three years, ever since they went digital, we've had problems. First we had lots of pixilation and freezing, and trading in our box a couple of times mostly fixed that. Now we have had a major return of another problem: some channels go to jet black screens. This happens on occasion with a handful of channels, mostly ones we don't watch all that much like FX and the Disney Channel, but a couple that we do watch, like the local weather radar (yes, I'm a weather geek, but that's a whole other blog post) and WSYX, our ABC affiliate. Last year, we sat down to watch the Oscars and had a black screen. We called, they did something from their HQ, but it didn't help and we couldn't see any of the show.

We don't really watch much ABC, so I haven't noticed many problems lately--we were able to watch Pushing Daisies this past fall and only one episode started freezing and breaking up--but when we decided to try Lost again last week (and the new show Eli Stone), we got the return of the dreaded black screen all night long. A phone call offered the usual list of things they could do (new box, visit by a worker) that never work, so we basically hung up. My mother, who lives in a different city nearby, has the same problem and the cable man who came to give her a new box told her that it probably wouldn't help, that they just don't know what the problem is. Sure enough, it didn't help, and she (also a 30-year Time Warner customer) is switching to a new AT&T cable service.

What is most frustrating is that, when you call to complain, the person on the other end (maybe in Ohio, maybe in Madagascar) acts like it's a problem he or she has never heard of, yet my mother's cable guy knew about it, and several acquaintances of ours, who live in different parts of the Central Ohio region, have the same problem. One person I know hasn't been able to get ABC for over a year now. A quick Google check shows that variations on this problem have been reported in other cities as well. Going digital has its advantages, but honestly we've had far more problems with picture quality since then. I like Time Warner and I love the DVR we have; we have to do some serious thinking about this, because I'm used to easy time shifting, and we'd have to get a Tivo or other option if we went to another cable system or satellite company. I don't like change, but we may be on the verge of a major one soon!