I didn't see the choppy motion you mentioned, but the quality of the HBO channel on Comcast anyway is not up to HiDef standards. It's obvious they have used compression to fit it to a narrower cable channel and you can see it in areas that have solid color, and in scenes that have rapid motion. It looks kind of like a chip you scanned and compressed with a level 1 JPG [g].

The series is going to be good, though, and I expect it will be up to the standards of the HBO series "Band of Brothers". You can always buy the DVD after the series is over and watch it again in HiDef.

The Comcast signal in Portland has been significantly degraded over the past couple of years. The only channels that retain high quality are the live network channels. Football games were great!