In eight days, over half a million Oregon and Southwest Washington residents will be subscribers to something they've never heard of before: Xfinity. Comcast's residential television, internet and voice products will bear that new name in eleven markets, including Portland and the entire stretch of service from Longview, Washington to Eugene. The rest of the country will make the switch over the coming year.

Portland was the first market where Comcast converted to digital service, and the Xfinity name is intended to communicate that difference and more, said Comcast CEO Brian Roberts on yesterday's earnings call. "I think we are giving a better and better service experience," he said.

The renaming also introduces a new brand between consumers and Comcast, with Comcast remaining the name at the top of customers' bills. Comcast's beleaguered brand placed second in Consumerist's Worst Company in America surveys in 2008 and 2009, surpassed only by economic disasters AIG and Countrywide Financial, which have also rebranded. Comcast didn't mention any negative associations with its brand in its earnings call.

The Xfinity name will also be added to Fancast, the company's online video service. Comcast customers will retain their existing comcast.net email addresses.

Comcast Cable tells Oregon Media Central that they have resolved the reception problems that have affected customers in Oregon and Southwest Washington recently, most notably for the past two nights.

"First, we apologize for any inconvenience to customers who have experienced intermittent video issues, often times called tiling," Comcast said in a statement. "Our engineers have been working diligently to identify the root cause of the problem and resolve it, and customers should not experience any interruption this evening."

Viewers from Vancouver to Eugene reported experiencing severe tiling problems and audio loss, including in our forums. Theressa Davis, Comcast's Vice President of Communications in Oregon, told OMC that the trouble "stemmed from how the signals are transported around the regional network."

While some had speculated that demand during primetime was exceeding bandwidth, Davis said that there wasn't any one cause as direct as that. "Any number of things" could be a factor in the routing, she said.

Davis also pointed out that "many, many customers didn't experience any interruptions." Rather, the problems "affected certain parts of the system at different times."

Many customers had said that the trouble was particularly severe with OPB, but it's unclear why. It's possible that OPB viewers were simply more irritated by the video issues because they occurred during a Ken Burns documentary that featured high-definition scenic photography.

There was "no channel disparity" with the video issues, Davis said, though the episodic nature of the problems could have made them worse for one channel at a particular time.

One customer noted in our comments that they received a free week of service credited to their account after reporting the issue. Davis says that Comcast is working with customers on a case-by-case basis.

While Comcast doesn't anticipate continued problems tonight, anyone experiencing trouble should contact 1-800-COMCAST. You can also leave a comment to this story, and we'll contact an executive if troubles persist.

Below the break, see videos of the problem, which viewers have uploaded to the internet.

Byron Beck has the details on PDXposed, the locally produced arts and entertainment program hosted by Jon Olson. The show, which earlier made the switch from Comcast to KGW, will move again to Meridith-owned sister stations Fox 12 Oregon and PDX TV in September. In a statement, Olson says, "We are excited to become a part of the FOX12 and PDX TV Team and with their commitment to high quality, entertaining content, it's a perfect fit!”

With Paul Allen's sale of Rose City Radio's KXL and KXTG to the newly formed Alpha Broadcasting, weekly show Trail Blazers Courtside is moving from radio to podcasting. The program, hosted by television sportscaster Mike Barrett, aired Wednesdays on KXTG 95.5 The Game, but is now on trailblazers.com from 6 to 8pm Mondays. (That's right now.) In a message from the Blazers' official Twitter account:

Courtside now streams live 6-8 p.m. Mondays on trailblazers.com & can also be found on CSNNW and several Trail Blazers Radio net affiliates.