osprey - We are very satisfied with NTL's service, it's just that every so often we have this problem, will get in touch with them next time, thank's for your response.
I had a similar problen with NTL where the we lost the TV programmes periodically. Also had a constant buzzing noise with NTL programmes. The NTL phone line went dead more often as well.
Because of this we managed to get out of the 12 month contract and moved back to BT, and then got a Freeview box with more programmes.
However i must concede the Freeview reception isnt always perfect, and the picture sometimes breaks up.
I just bought an HDD/DVD Recorder with inbuilt Freeview and a similar thing keeps happening usually in the evening! Last night I repeated autosetup, retuning all the channels, which fixed the problem.