Has any one else noticed the decrease in picture quality of Direct TV standard definition broadcasts in the past week or so.

I have observed a significant increase in compression artifacts (grainy blockiness around high contrast areas).

I suspect that Direct TV may be trying to push more channels out over their satellites - in order to do that they would need to decrease the data-rate and quality the each channel - or at least many channels - by compressing the channels more.

I work in the television industry doing compression and color correction on signals so my eyes are sensitive to this kind of thing, but when I mentioned it to my wife she immediately agreed that she had felt like the picture quality had gotten worse.