In this age of high-definition TV, not a whole lot of TV fits on a digital video recorder (DVR). It seems like I can only squeeze five movies and a few hours of prime-time shows on mine.

Western Digital Corp. in Lake Forest just announced a fix for DISH Network’s users. Its $149.99 MyDVR Expander hard drive (on right) plugs into DISH Network’s ViP Series HD DVR via USB. It immediately adds 60 extra hours of HD space (or 300 hours of standard-definition video).

In addition to the extra space, the 500-GB external drive may also save you money. The drive uses WD’s GreenPower technology, which means it uses less power because it has a no-fan passive cooling system. WD says it reduces energy consumption by 30 percent and is quiet enough to use in the bedroom.

WD already offers My DVR Expander drives for TiVo and Scientific Atlanta cable boxes.

While that excludes my home DVR, WD does offer the rest of us hope: “Further compatibility of the My DVR Expander drive is planned as other cable and satellite DVR manufacturers enable the USB ports on their currently-deployed DVRs,” says the company.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under Alt+Save the Earth, Storage, Video and TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.