Boxee recently released its Live TV tuner, which allows owners of the Boxee Box to receive over-the-air TV programming through the device. The tuner currently doesn’t support any DVR functionality, but there have been numerous requests to add this to the Boxee Box, and the startup has said that it is looking into such a possibility.

The survey asked owners of the newly released TV tuner about their experience with the device, only to finish with a very specific question about a DVR service offering: “How much would you be willing to pay for the ability to record 300hrs of TV,” it asked, with possible answers being $5, $10 or $15 per month.

A DVR subscription would pit Boxee against another startup, Simple.tv, which announced its own DVR geared toward the cord-cutting crowd at CES last month. The company is selling its hardware for $150 and will charge users an additional $5 per month for access to its programming guide.

Boxee also hinted at the launch of further broadcast TV-related products in a recent, heavily redacted FCC filing. A company spokesperson told me last week that Boxee is not yet ready to comment on its future product roadmap.

Check out our Boxee Live TV tuner review below:

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At the center of Dish’s new whole-home DVR solution is a set-top box called the Hopper, which includes a 2TB hard drive capable of storing up to 2,000 hours of video content. It also includes Joeys, which are smaller, thin-client devices that can stream live or pre-recorded content to any room in the house. Not surprisingly, the Hopper and Joey boxes were built by Dish’s sister corporation EchoStar, and take advantage of the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) spec.

The Hopper has three tuners, but here’s the twist: One of those tuners is set to record all four major broadcast stations during primetime hours. Called “PrimeTime Anytime,” the new service automatically DVRs the most popular and most watched shows from ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. That means that Dish users will have access to eight days worth of broadcast content without having to worry about setting their DVRs. In addition to PrimeTime Anytime content, Dish subscribers can record two more programs from other channels, meaning the DVR can store up to six programs simultaneously during prime-time hours.

For those who connect their set-top box to the Internet, the Hopper will be able to access thousands of streaming titles from Dish’s Blockbuster service, which is being renamed Blockbuster @Home. And, the satellite provider is also rolling out a new feature called Dish Unplugged, which will allow satellite users without broadband access to view hundreds of popular on-demand movie titles by downloading them directly to the Hopper’s hard drive.

Due to the introduction of PrimeTime Anytime and Dish Unplugged, much of the Hopper’s recording capacity will be used up at any given time, meaning subscribers won’t be able to take advantage of the full 2TB themselves. However, even with those services, they’ll be able to record about 1,000 hours of SD programming or 250 hours of HD programming on the box.

Finally, in addition to more advanced recording capabilities, the Hopper will feature TV apps that give subscribers access to social networks, games, news, weather, sports and stock information. And subscribers will be able to access and manage the DVR and other features through the web or through Dish’s Remote Access App.

For Dish, the bet on the DVR runs somewhat counter to other pay TV operators, which are trying to win over customers with more on-demand content, as well as greater access to streaming titles through TV Everywhere initiatives. But given the fact that Dish doesn’t provide broadband services to its customers, that’s probably a good idea. Giving them as much content as possible through its own satellite feed and set-top box might be one way to ensure that they don’t go to Hulu and other services to catch up on shows they might have missed.

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The Simple.TV box will be marketed to a growing number of cord cutters that have chosen to do away with their cable packages, giving them the ability to record and stream local broadcast and basic cable channels. While it doesn’t have an HDMI output for hooking up to a consumer’s TV, it will allow them to stream to some connected TVs or other streaming devices that they might have already bought.

Simple.TV works like this: You connect the streaming set-top box to an HD antenna or cable connection, as well as to your broadband connection, and the device allows you to beam live and recorded TV to any number of mobile, tablet or connected device apps that support the box. At launch, Simple.TV will support streaming to the iPad, Roku streaming boxes, Google TV-enabled devices and the Boxee Box.

The box includes an HD tuner and converts digital video feeds to MPEG-4 streams that can be accessed by other devices. While the Simple.TV box won’t have any on-board storage at launch, it will allow users to connect their own USB-enabled hard drives or network-attached storage to record programming from available over-the-air or cable content.

The Simple.TV box will be available in the spring of this year, and will sell for $149 at launch. In addition, consumers will be offered a premium subscription package for $4.99 a month that gives them access to an electronic program guide, enhanced metadata, Series Pass-type automatic recording of their favorite shows, and the ability to stream to up to five different connected devices.

Really Simple Software, which makes the Simple.TV box, is based in Tiburon, Calif. and its founders include CEO Mark Ely, former president of Sonic Solutions (which was acquired by Rovi in December 2010) and CTO Bruce Randall, who was lead architect of Deluxe Digital’s Blu-ray streaming services and had also worked for Sonic Solutions. The startup has about 12 employees and is currently angel-funded, although it’s in the process of raising a Series A round of financing.

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“Thunderbolt” is turning up in my inbox quite a bit, with pitches for Thunderbolt docks, drives, adapters and expansion devices. No doubt that is helped in part by the news that Thunderbolt will be coming to computers from select PC vendors, including Acer and Asus, arriving sometime in the second quarter of this year. But it also helps that nearly all of Apple’s line of computers, including its popular iMac desktop, have put Thunderbolt into the hands of a much broader potential market of peripheral shoppers.

Some of the products on tap include more-traditional external drives than we have seen to date, with SSD drives from usual-suspect Mac accessory makers like Elgato and OCZ. These drives still are not exactly aimed at the average computer user, since they will reportedly come in starting at $400 for storage sizes of 128 GB and up. But they should be a hit with pro video and audio editors, as well as the semi-pro or serious hobbyist crowd.

Much more interesting to mainstream Mac users are devices like the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock, which should arrive in September and will boast three USB 2.0 ports, one Firewire 800 connection, a Gigabit Ethernet port, one 3.5 mm audio jack and two Thunderbolt ports. Basically, it provides a lot of what the Apple Thunderbolt Display offers but without the screen and for a heavily reduced price of $299. For users who want a quick and easy docking solution for plug-and-play home theater connectivity, this is a good solution and cheaper than many receivers.

Another solution that average users might get some use from is the Thunderbolt eSATA hub shown off by LaCie at CES. It features connections for up to two eSATA-connected drives via one Thunderbolt port, along with a second Thunderbolt port for daisy-chaining. ESATA drives are loads cheaper than their native Thunderbolt equivalents, and with top speeds of 6 Gbps, eSATA is still plenty fast for most users. No word on pricing yet, but this one is coming soon: within the first quarter of 2012.

LaCie also unveiled a dual 3.5-inch drive enclosure called the 2Big that hooks up via Thunderbolt, with size offerings of up to 8 TB of total storage planned. I wouldn’t expect this one to be within the average consumer’s price range, but the more the tech is adopted at all levels, the better the potential of lower prices across the board.

Some of these items are still pro-focused and the others aren’t exactly cheap, but at least accessory makers finally seem to be embracing the possibilities that Thunderbolt offers. With cheaper third-party cables and maybe some USB 3.0 cross-compatibility, this should be the year we see the Thunderbolt port get used for more than just Mini DisplayPort connections.

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The appointment comes at a critical time for Charter, as it faces consumer demand for TV Everywhere and increasing competition from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. While Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision have aggressively rolled out TV Everywhere services, Charter has been a bit behind the rest of the pack. Bringing on Rutledge should improve the product rollout at a cable operator that is lacking in some serious innovation.

The new chief executive has a reputation for creating new products. In a boon for its subscribers, Cablevision aggressively rolled out free Wi-Fi hotspots for subscribers throughout its home market, for instance. But not all of the new innovative products were popular.

During his tenure, Cablevision introduced a few new features that angered its programming partners. For instance, it was taken to court over plans to launch network DVR services, a case that it eventually won. Cablevision is now (slowly) making those services available to customers in certain parts of its network footprint.

More recently, Cablevision released an iPad app which allowed for live streaming of all a subscriber’s cable channels as long as they were connected to their home network. That move was controversial and unprecedented among other cable operators, which are largely making sure they have rights to network content before making live streams available, even within the home.

In contrast, Cablevision’s attitude was somewhat antagonistic from a rights perspective: It believed the iPad wasn’t another device that deserved its own set of rights — it was just another screen that subscribers should be able to watch their favorite channels on.

So here’s what Charter customers and investors get to look forward to: a really smart, hard-charging exec who pushes the limits of product innovation. For all those who live in a Charter neighborhood, that’s really good news.

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