Here’s an email we get a lot – and something I always forget to post on the blog: auto-record of TiVo Suggestions.

When customers get a new hard drive from us (we’ve got them for every model TiVo) and they install it and set it up, they find that it’s recording a lot of shows that they haven’t requested. And, shows they don’t want.

This is happening because TiVo Suggestions is on by default – and the new drive is using the default settings. And why are they shows you don’t want? Your thumbs-up and thumbs-down history was on your old drive. So the new drive has very little info to offer to the Suggestion engine.

OK – here’s how to turn it off. Go to:

Settings -> Recording -> TiVo Suggestions

and choose No!

That should do the trick. Now you can just delete the accumulated shows. If you have folders on, you should see them all in a folder marked “TiVo Suggestions”.

There have been several blog posts about TiVo HDs being out of stock at TiVo and at BestBuy.

TiVo does have them in stock if you want a refurbished unit.

If you want a new one, we have them – all shapes and sizes. See our complete line of TiVo HDs.

There’s no question we get asked here at WeaKnees more than “When is the new DirecTV TiVo HD coming out?”

Man, do we wish we had a good answer.

Both DirecTV and TiVo have generally only gotten as specific as “2010.” And that’s all we’ve been able to repeat to everyone.

But, recently, DirecTV has posted a couple of tweets that narrow down the 12 month window to, maybe, a four month window. They’ve used the terms “early next year” and “first part of 2010″ in their posts.

Yes, this is important breaking news, and it’s definitive.

Now, if only we had some clue as to features, pricing, looks, availability, etc. . .

While we’re on the theme of what customers want but they can’t get, we should put to rest another request: the DirecTV TiVo with DVD.

Yesterday’s installment concerned the request for an HD TiVo with DVD. That one can’t work at this point and probably in the future for technical reasons.

But the idea of a DirecTV DVR with an integrated DVD burner really, really could work for technical reasons. The issue here is more about copyright, and, in general, DirecTV’s unwillingness to push the envelope with content providers.

Why is this different from a standard TiVo with DVD which does, in fact, exist? The big reason is that on the Humax models that we sell (and on the older Pioneer and Toshiba TiVo models with DVD) the recordings are made from analog inputs. That means that the quality, while very good, isn’t quite as good as the all-digital quality of recordings to DirecTV TiVos and other DVRs and the HD TiVos with CableCARDs. If you take that all-digital signal and pump it to a DVD, then you’ve basically got a digital copy that’s pretty amazing. DirecTV doesn’t want to be the gatekeeper on that.

Of course, if that’s what you really want – all digital copy to a DVD – then there is a way to do it, just not with DirecTV. You can get a standalone TiVo or HD TiVo and copy your shows over a network to your PC or Mac, then burn them there. But DirecTV won’t help you there – at least, so far. There’s a chance that the upcoming DirecTV HD TiVo will have networking features . . .

Sorry – it just doesn’t exist. We really wish it did. We have the standard definition Humax DVD unit, but nothing for the HD world.

There really aren’t even consumer-level DVD burners that can make Blu-ray DVDs at this point, and they may never come. With the HDCP copy protection on HD broadcasts, really the biggest candidate for recording to DVD in HD would be video from an HD video camera.

So what are the next-best options?

-Recording as standard def to DVD with a standalone player

or

-Transferring data to a Mac or PC over a network. For Macs, you’d need Roxio Toast, and for PCs you’d need TiVo Desktop Plus.

To transfer data, you need to have your TiVo on a network. If you aren’t already on a network, see our list of TiVo networking adapters.

Finally, we really don’t expect a unit with both HD and DVD to ever exist, so if you’re waiting for one to make the jump to HD, our advice would be to just get an HD unit now and enjoy it without DVD.