Poor HD picture quality in Mountain View, California

I have had DishTV's HD package for over a year now. Recently the HD image quality has worsened to a point where it is marginally better than SD. The picture is grainy, lacks crispness, and has occasional pixelation. I verified all the settings on my Panasonic 46" HDTV - 1080i, 16x9, etc - and I have good HDMI cables. Finally I called in the DishTV support line. They sent out a technician today and after looking things over he said that there is nothing he can do about it.

Is this a commonly reported issue?

ps: Dish is now sending me a new receiver box (211) to replace my older 211. Don't know if that will solve anything.

Did the Dish tech peak your dish (align it for highest signal strength)?

You might want to try using component cables (red, green, blue) for video...