Well, that is exactly the problem folks are finding out about digital over the air TV.
Folks that have been getting away with rabbit ears and a loop for years, just a few ghosts, now find that digital picture freezes, pixalizes or just goes blank, same with the sound. They make a call to the sales person and find out that the local HD station is only running 10K watts and the normal analog station is running 50K watts.
They also find out what you just stated, it is all or nothing. Either the reciever recieves enough packets to put to make up the rest and put together a picture, or it doesn't.
Hey! They say, "Well I got a picture on my old set". Well, yah, but one full of multi-path reception (Ghosts). Digital hates getting packets out of order or having them clobered by other packets. Reception must be strong and must be free of multi-path signals.
What can we do? They ask, then the sales person sells them a "HD ready" outdoor antenna and installation by a professional installer which "Specializes" in HD.
Problem is for TV, there is no going back. It should be an exciting year
Ron