We have Dish Network.  I'll be watching TV on any station and about every 5 minutes or so, the audio will stop and the video will kinda lag, and then after a second or two everything is back to normal.
It used to be more rare, but it's been occuring more and more lately.   My mom was recently down in St. Louis and said that Direct TV down there did the same thing.

I'm thinking about contacting the company to see if it's a hardware/software issue, or whatnot.  It's not a "coverage" issue, or trees in the way, or weather because it happens rain, shine, day and night. 

Do folks with cable experience similar issues?

A new show on Discovery called "Wreckreation Nation" has its host (Dave Mordal) going from one recreational event to another, including a LARP even in Pennsylvania.

"Dagorhir (which translates as “battle lords” in author J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sindarin Elven language) is both a sport and a game that combines fast-paced, full-contact combat simulation with elements of live action role-playing. Dagorhir battle games combine elements of both history and fantasy, and participants experience their fantasies on a variety of levels. Its wide-ranging appeal is the reason for Dagorhir’s nationwide success.

The battle of Badon Hill is the premier fall event of Dagorhir Battle Game Association. It takes place in Somerset, Penn., with an average yearly attendance of around 500."


Watch the YouTube Teaser for the series.
The series premiers on Tuesday, January 6th at 10pm.

With the onset of digital and on-demand programming, I got to wondering: is it possible to watch TV these days without commercials?
What if for $.99 you could watch a program commercial free?  Maybe the 15-30 minutes at the end of the programming would be filled with the commercials you didn't watch, or perhaps bonus material?

If said programming didn't wish to work like HBO or other premium  networks that air commercial-less programming, It might work like this:
"Heroes" is on at 8pm.  So at 8pm you go to ABC Premium channel and pay to watch it commercial free for $1.  It starts when it normally would, but runs sans commercial (maybe it would include scenes cut for time, or added scenes just for this feature.)    You watch your program seamlessly until it ends.  If there is still time at the end, maybe they fill it with extra features, or commercials for other programs available through the service, or maybe the commercials that were missed, or bonus material (behind the scenes, interviews, etc.) 

While I don't suspect that everyone would pay the money all of the time, would you pay money to watch the premier episode of House, or Dancing With The Stars, or (name your favorite network/cable show here) without commercials for half the price of a DVD or Pay-per-view rental? (Or, hell, how about not having those god-damned annoying bottom-of-the-screen commercials popping up in the middle of your programing?)