Dish Network's New DVR System Can Record 6 HD Shows Simultaneously

Dish Network announced Monday at CES in Las Vegas a new digital video recording system that can record six TV shows simultaneously in high definition.

The new DVR, called Hopper, has a two terabyte hard drive and includes a feature that allows you to automatically record eight days of prime time programming from ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

The 2TB gives Hopper the ability to store up to 2000 hours of video.

Along with the Hopper, Dish introduced "Joey," extenders that can be placed in rooms throughout a house and receive content from the Hopper.

Not only do the Joeys allow you to pause a show or movie in one room and unpause it in another, but with Dish's new music offering, which includes 73 channels of music from Sirius XM satellite radio, each room with a Joey can have its own musical ambiance.

In addition to its new DVR offering, Dish announced it is expanding its "Blockbuster@Home" service to include a library of more than 6000 family and kid shows. Blockbuster, which Dish bought in April 2010, directly competes with Netflix in the DVD by mail and streaming content business.

In a play for the rural market, the satellite TV provider also announced "Dish Unplugged." It allows users without a broadband connection to download movies to their DVRs where they can watch them with the same convenience as streaming.

Dish also pulled the wraps off a satellite broadband service with 12 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps downstream capacities for $50 a month.

The announcement of the Hopper and Joey came a day after Dish announced its new iPad app that allows movies and TV shows to be streamed to that tablet.

For more blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, check out PCWorld's complete coverage of CES 2012.

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This story, "Dish Network's New DVR System Can Record 6 HD Shows Simultaneously " was originally published by PCWorld.