I have a RCA HD receiver connected to my 970 and I don't se complete drop-outs per-se, just some "hesitation" accompanied sometimes by a small pop. I have noticed that some over-the-air stations do a better job than others. Where I live (DC area), FOX HD is the best in my opinion at keeping formats mostly uniform during sports events and HD programming. CBS is the worst, sometimes switching mid-game like when momentarily showing another game or a report from an alternate location (extremely annoying). I don't have drop-out problems with DirecTV HD channels, just the over-the-air channels.