Yup, years ago we were TV stars. Wow – it’s only four years old, but, for us, it’s a blast from the past.

Starting today, May 15, 2008, TiVo is bringing back Product Lifetime Service for new TiVo DVRs. The price will be $399 for the first DVR on an account, and $299 for each additional unit on the same account.

Previously, lifetime had been available for $399 for additional boxes on an already existing TiVo.com account. This change paves the way for new TiVo users, or TiVo users moving over from DirecTV TiVos to cable, to get lifetime service initially. We think this is a great move! Many of our customers have expressed animosity towards recurring monthly fees, so this gives them a away to avoid those fees. It also lowers the price for lifetime for existing, loyal TiVo customers.

In addition, for customers with a TiVo.com account, secondary boxes will now be eligible to get the Multi Service Discount (MSD) in the form of an annual prepay for $99. There were ways to get this deal previously, but it will now be more prominent on the TiVo website. There is no longer prepayment plan for MSD units except for lifetime at $299. If you figure the lifetime service over a three-year horizon, at $8.31/month we think this is a great deal. Then, after three years are up, you effectively have totally free service.

Finally, the two-year prepayment option is going away completely. This is largely cosmetic – for quite a while, TiVo has offered a discount on the three-year plan bringing it to the cost of the two-year plan, so likely no one ever chose the two-year deal.

Back in early March, we wrote about our first shipment of the HR21 Pro and its bells and whistles. Those boxes flew out the door.

After a month-long wait, we have finally received our next large shipment of the DIRECTV HR21 Pro from DIRECTV. All but a handful are going out the door today, so if you want one, get your order in now.

We will be getting another large order in less than a week, we hope, so watch the website for stock information.

We put this up a little while ago, but never linked to it here.

So if you’re looking for some hints about how to move quickly around in recordings, or how to access certain features without navigating through long menus, see our HR20 and HR21 remote tips.

We’ve been selling DirecTV Single Wire Multiswitches (SWMs) for some time.

Due to fluctuations in pricing, we’ve always sold these with coupons, on the theory that we could adjust the coupon as our cost changed. But that seemed to be a royal pain. So, now that we have good access to the switches, and pretty consistent pricing, we’ve just lowered the price and made it simple. $279 gets you a SWM!