I just opened up a new pallet of TiVo HD units, and I saw this new graphic on the boxes:

New TiVo HD Box Graphic

So this made me think, are people mistakenly buying these boxes, assuming they’ll work with satellite TV? Or is TiVo changing the packaging so that they can distinguish it with the DirecTV HD TiVo when it ships?

I’m hoping that this means the latter, and that this also means they’re working on designing the packaging for it. Judging by the amount of requests we’re already getting for it, the DirecTV HD TiVo should be a pretty big hit.

Following on Monday’s news of full HD DVRs with 2 TB of internal storage, we’re now shipping upgrades for DirecTV HD DVRs with 2 TB also.

We offer this upgrade two ways:

• As an internal upgrade: you send us your DVR and we upgrade it and return it.
• As an external upgrade: we send you a plug-and-play drive for your DVR.

Both of these options are available with our copy service, where we move your content from your current drive to the new 2 TB drive. Of course, if you want that with the external drive, you still have to send in your unit.

More information and pricing is on our DirecTV HD DVR Upgrade page.

Starting today, we’re now shipping DirecTV’s HD DVRs with up to 2 TB of internal storage. We’re using the Western Digital Green Power series of drives in these units, the same series of drives we use at the Terabyte size.

As with other Green Power drives, these run cool and they really make surprisingly little noise for a hard drive at all, much less for a huge hard drive.

DirecTV HD DVR HR22

The 2 TB drive gives you up to 480 hours of HD storage, depending on compression and format. See our whole line of DirecTV HD DVRs.

If you have a DirecTV HD DVR HR21 or later, and you want to get your OTA HD signals into your unit, you need the DirecTV AM21 (or, “antenna module”). This unit basically just adds off-air capability to your DVR.

But the AM21 has been out of stock pretty much everywhere for many weeks now. And our distributors don’t even know when they’ll be getting these units.

So what can you do? The answer is the HR20 DirecTV HD DVR. This was the first of the MPEG-4 capable DirecTV HD DVRs, and it has an off-air module built-in. DirecTV later removed this capability, likely to lower manufacturing costs, plus to force customers to get their local HD channels from DirecTV – at $5/month.

We still have a good supply of the HR20 in stock, shipping every day from our warehouse in Los Angeles. If you’re looking for a new DVR with OTA capability, this is a great machine, and, currently, the only way to get OTA into an MPEG-4 DirecTV DVR.

Once upon a time, there was only one 3LNB dish in the DirecTV world. But that’s no longer the case, and it’s generating some confusion.

DirecTV has used several dishes over the years, to reach signals from many different satellites. But, for the most mainstream programming, there has been a simple progression from a single LNB dish, to a dual LNB dish, to a triple, and then to the five LNB dish. Each dish saw everything the preceding dish saw. Until now.

Now, there’s a new 3LNB dish that sees different satellites than the 3LNB from years ago. The original 3LNB dish added the ability to see a new satellite that sent out HD signals from the 110 and 119 satellites. But this new 3LNB dish can’t see either of those orbital slots – it sees the main DirecTV satellite (101) plus the newer 99 and 103 satellites.

And, this dish comes in two varieties – regular, and SWM. SWM is Single Wire Multiswitch, meaning that out of the one cable from the SWM version, you can run up to eight tuners, just using SWM splitters. The 5LNB dish is also available in both configurations. Further, the 3LNB and 5LNB non-SWM dishes will also work with a standalone SWM for more configuration and expansion.

Down to the details: It’s not the pricing that would necessarily lead you to this dish (although, since it is a bit less expensive, it will be included on general DirecTV installs where the 5LNB isn’t necessary). It’s the ease of installation. Yes, it’s still the same sized reflector, but since you’re aiming at fewer satellites, the fine tuning is easier.

For ordering info, see our DirecTV Dish page.