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Originally Posted by Damien
What is a power level in this context? What is an RS error?
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The power level is the signal strength from the cable into the hub. It should be between -6 and +10 when it is installed. (This does include some margin for signals varying over time, so your signals might drift outside this range but not actually cause a problem).
RS is Reed-Solomon forward error correction. Some extra check bits are appended to each data packet that's transmitted so that if the packet is slightly corrupted by noise on the network, the errors can be corrected (that's known as a correctable error). If the corruption is more severe, it won't be possible to correct the errors, but the receiver will still know that the data was incorrect, so it can discard the packet entirely (an uncorrectable error).
When an uncorrectable error happens on broadband, the high-level protocols generally detect that a packet has been lost, and requests its retranmission, but this takes time so slows down your data transfer. If an uncorrectable error happens on broadcast TV, there is no way to request retransmission, so parts of the picture are simply missed - usually it pixellates.