It used to be that if you wanted to record television or stream media into your living room, you'd need to fumble around with a home theater PC (HTPC). That's still an option -- and a good one -- but no longer necessary. There are a host of set-top boxes that promise everything from Netflix streaming to DVR functionality, and everything in between.

Hitachi hopes to capitalize on this semi-recent trend with the introduction of its 3.5-inch CinemaStar 5K2000 and 2.5-inch C5K750 drive families.

The CinemaStar C5K750 family ships in 500GB, 640GB, and 750GB capacities with a 375GB per platter design. They're Hitachi's first Consumer Electronic (CE) drives with Advanced Format technology, which increases physical sector sizes from 512 bytes to 4096 bytes.

Meanwhile, the CinemaStar 5K2000 family ships in both 1.5TB and 2TB capacities with a 667GB per platter design. According to Hitachi, these drives run nearly silent, and combined with lower power consumption, this makes them ideal for DVR and other set-top box applications.

Up until now, if you wanted to watch a program in your bedroom that you recorded with your living room DVR, you were out of luck, at least with DirecTV. But with the launch of DirecTV's Whole-Home DVR service, you can do exactly that.

"We’ve created a connected whole-home service that is perfectly attuned to our customers viewing habits and lifestyles, delivering a DVR experience with maximum convenience and control," said Romulo Pontual, CTO of DirecTV. "The DirecTV® Whole-Home DVR service truly enables customers to watch what they want, where they want and when they want it, by simply using a single HD DVR."

The service runs $3/month, and for that you're able to record and watch shows in up to 15 rooms with a single HD DVR. That means if you record a movie in one room, you can pick up where you left off in another room with a standard receiver. What's more, you can control the DVR from any DTV receiver in your home, including record, delete, pause, and rewind functionality.

More here.