Boxee’s Cloud DVR now comes with a limited free service tier.

The new Boxee Cloud DVR box offers users unlimited storage for their TV recordings in the cloud. Unlimited playback, as well as the capability to view recordings on computers and mobile devices, costs users $10 a month. The new free service tier offers up ro five hours of DVR playback every month. There is still a free test period while the service is in beta.

So why did Boxee take the unusual step to rebrand a product just months after launch? The company’s VP of communications Andrew Kippen told me Tuesday that the previous name didn’t accurately capture the device’s functionality, letting consumers to believe that it was primarily a media player similar to Apple TV or Roku. The new name is meant to emphasize the DVR functionality as a key differentiator.

However, It’s worth noting that the company’s DVR service is currently just available in eight markets. Kippen told me that the plan is to extend the service to 26 markets by the end of the year, which should cover most of the country.

As part of the rebrand, Boxee seems to also have toned down its cord cutting rhetoric. The company made its ability to replace cable a key selling point when it unveiled its new device last fall, even promising “Free TV” prominently on the Boxee TV packaging.

On its newly-launched website, Boxee instead compares the device to TiVos and cable DVRs, touting unlimited storage and not free broadcast content as the key differentiator. That has likely to do with the fact that Boxee wants to get access to cable content as well. The company struck an agreement with Comcast to access encrypted basic cable signals last year.

That’s a decidedly different path than the one taken by Aereo, which has been battling Comcast’s NBC and other boradcasters in court for its take on cloud TV. Check out our paidContent Live conference in New York next week for a fireside chat with Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia.

Take a look my Boxee Cloud DVR unboxing video below:

With every major event we now experience as a country, whether it’s the Super Bowl or the presidential inauguration, it becomes more evident that the conversation on social media is as tied to the event as is the process of physically tuning into the broadcast. There’s nothing new about this — the rise of social media and the second screen has been clear for years — but as soaring numbers for social media sharing are revealed after each event, we shake our heads at just how quickly things have changed.

Even within a year, the connection between television events and their small screen counterparts has grown at a remarkable rate (13.7 million Super Bowl-related tweets in 2012 versus 24.1 million last night, and from 100 million active Twitter users in September 2011 to 200 million in December 2012).

That growth is changing how we view and consume media and how advertisers work to reach us. Suddenly, they can fairly reliably cross-promote between television and online, and consumers are increasingly sucked into experiencing both events in real time. And I say events, because watching Twitter during an event like the Super Bowl is an experience in itself.

One predicted trend that hasn’t come into existence yet is the merging of the television and social experiences into one, as Om once predicted and brought to my attention this morning. People are still pretty much watching television on televisions and tweeting from phones or laptops. As we wrote this morning, the majority of Super Bowl viewers did so through traditional broadcast methods, and tweeting from your TV still hasn’t exactly caught on.

But with every event comes the inevitable blog posts from Twitter and Facebook and Instagram about how this was the most-tweeted or the most-photographed or the most-shared event EVER. Frankly, those posts will only be newsworthy if the numbers ever decline, but that seems unlikely at this point. The dual forces of television and social media are dragging us into experiencing live events as they happen, turning on its head the idea that portable computing devices and streaming will let us watch whatever we want whenever we want. And they are setting different standards for how viewer engagement is measured: we all know the Nielsen ratings are a bit of a joke in this day and age. With Twitter’s reported acquisition of social tv analytics company Bluefin Labs, it’s something everyone is interested in figuring out.

My friend’s attempt to watch last week’s heart-wrenching Downton Abbey episode a day later was cheapened when a pivotal plot point was spoiled by a parody account for the Dowager Countess on Twitter (obviously do not click that link if you live under a rock and haven’t watched yet). It was a rough way to find out. And the experience cured my friend of wanting to DVR an episode ever again.

Because if you care about the content and you’re tied to the internet as so many of us are, saving anything for later is a losing battle. And the rapid wit of the Oreo jokes on Twitter during the Super Bowl can’t really be appreciated at a later date. Even as the Dowager Countess parody tweet ruined the episode for my friend, it probably entertained thousands of Downton fans who felt more in the know when they saw it, and felt more connected to the show as a result. There’s nothing like seeing a witty remark from someone you follow about an event you’re also following — suddenly it’s a joke you share with other people. And that experience is extremely hard to replicate after the fact.

Most of us will have to accept the fact that seperating live events from their social media counterparts is a losing battle at this point, but for brands like Oreo, the knowledge that they have a dual-platform audience creates real possibilities. And as they proved last night, can be a delicious combo, both for advertisers and witty twitter users who want in on the joke when it happens.

If only they had gone all the way with that case …

The rumination stems from a new commercial-deleting feature called “Auto Hop” introduced last week by Dish Network for its Hopper DVRs. The feature essentially strips out commercial pods for shows recorded on the major broadcast TV networks.

Once again, broadcasters are facing a DVR function that undermines their ad-supported business model. And once again, they seem poised to litigate over it.

”I think this is an attack on our eco system,” NBC Broadcasting chairman Ted Harbert said during a Monday conference call held in conjunction with NBC’s upfront presentation to advertisers. “I’m not for it.”

Also read: Forget Mad Men, does Dish hate all advertising?

With subscriber growth for satellite TV services stagnating, Dish undoubtedly sees such a consumer-friendly feature as a way to differentiate itself and expand on its current count of 14 million U.S. customers. Neither Dish’s chief satellite competitor, DirecTV, or any rival cable or telco pay TV operator has been bold — or disrespectful enough — to undermine programmers in this way.

“Auto Hop adds to an already long list of broadcast-unfriendly features of Dish’s service, including 30 second skip buttons on their remote controls (other DVR services, including DirecTV and TiVo, have ‘locked’ this feature out of sight; Dish boldly promotes it on a button on the remote),” wrote Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Craig Moffett last week.

Should broadcasters seek legal remedies to stop Dish, they will have to battle a determined adversary, led by chairman Charlie Ergen, who’s no stranger to protracted, nasty media litigation.

But as the Hollywood Reporter noted, it didn’t have to be this way. In 2001, the networks sued ReplayTV parent company Sonicblue over a DVR feature that let users fast-forward through commercials with a press of a button.

Sonicblue filed for bankruptcy in 2003, before a federal court could decide the case, and the general perception was that the networks managed to sue ReplayTV out of existence. With ReplayTV vanquished, broadcasters never followed through on their quest for a ruling that commercial-skipping DVRs indeed undermine economic underpinnings of — and thus violate — copyrighted material.

In the interim, legal precedent unfavorable to broadcasters was established, such a 2009 federal appeals court ruling that Cablevision did not violate the copyrights of network shows when it offered its subscribers a remote-storage DVR.

Meanwhile, Dish promises to be a tougher adversary than Sonicblue.

Dish’s ongoing court battle with AMC Networks over defunct HD programming service Voom HD is just once example of its pugnaciousness. Earlier this month, a New York court ruled that Dish intentionally destroyed evidence in the four-year-old, $2.5 billion case, which stemmed from the satellite company’s decision to drop carriage of the AMC channels back in 2008. The court upheld AMC’s case, which now appears set for trial.

Perhaps coincidentally — perhaps not — Dish revealed last week that it doesn’t intend to renew its carriage deal for AMC’s cable networks, which expires June 30, despite the fact that ratings are up big on the AMC flagship channel.

Announced during an afternoon press conference at CES, the company’s spiffy new “Hopper” DVR was the highlight among numerous Dish Network announcements, as the Englewood, Colo-based satellite TV carrier looks to recover from several tough years filled with subscriber losses. In fact, appearing at the Las Vegas press conference alongside a live kangaroo — the new Dish mascot — CEO Joe Clayton even rolled out a new logo, terming the press conference a “relaunch of the company,” according to published reports.

Coupled with a sidekick box called the “Joey” – subscribers can put up to four of those in places like bedrooms and bathrooms — the Hopper is part of a new service Dish calls Prime Time (NYSE: TWX) Anytime. Up to six live programming signals can be recorded at once and up to four can be played back at one time. Among the other news from Dish Monday:

>> Dish will begin bundling broadband with its video services this summer (base bundle price: $79.99 per month). The company is partnering with satellite communications company ViaSat Inc. to provide up to 12 Mbps of data transfer.

>> Dish will expand its Blockbuster Home package by adding 3,000 kid-friendly titles to the library. Titles available for streaming on demand include Veggie Tales, Inspector Gadget, Goosebumps, Heathcliff, I Spy and Strawberry Shortcake.

>> Dish is also expanding the amount of Latino-targeted programming available through Blockbuster home, adding more than 3,000 episodes of telenovellas.

>> The company touted a new adapter that lets subscribers watch live programming on devices including tablets.

In November, Dish reported that it had lost an additional 111,000 subscribers in the third quarter, bringing its total customer count below 13 million. Through September 30, Dish’s subscribers were down nearly 20 percent for 2011.

The settlement will result in AT&T paying TiVo $51 million upfront as well as a series of quarterly payments, totaling $164 million, through 2018 when the patents expire. The $215 total figure could be augmented by additional top-offs if AT&T’s subscriber base exceeds a given number in coming years.

TiVo first sued AT&T in the summer of 2009 after the phone and cable giant began a offering a competing version of the set-top box that lets viewers record and fast-forward TV shows. After more than two years of procedural wrangling, the case was on the verge of going to trial in East Texas before today’s settlement was announced.

“We are extremely pleased to reach an agreement with AT&T, which acknowledges the value of our intellectual property,” said Tom Rogers, CEO and President of TiVo in a statement.

The settlements could also increase TiVo’s leverage against Verizon which it claims is infringing the same patents through its FiOS TV service. A Texas judge agreed to stay that case in November until early January, citing the related litigation.

TiVo is also tangled in a major suit with Motorola (NYSE: MMI) Mobility which sued the set-top box maker for infringing its patents. TiVo says Motorola filed the suit merely as a retaliatory tactic after TiVo sued its customer, Verizon. A judge agreed to stay the proceedings pending the outcome of the Verizon case.

Both unresolved lawsuits are now in a position to go forward though no trial dates have been set.

Today’s statement also announced that AT&T and TiVo have entered an agreement to cross-license their patent portfolios related to TV technology. The exact terms of the agreement will likely remain confidential and the parties will instead simply file a notice with the court saying they have resolved the litigation.

The upshot of today’s event is that TiVo now has another massive cash infusion following a patent deal last May in which it obtained $500 million from Dish Network (NSDQ: DISH) and EchoStar (NSDQ: SATS). TiVo has slumped in recent years but it reportedly broke a four-year decline in subscriber numbers last November. The extra cash and additional six years of patent protection means it has lots of times to figure out a long-term growth strategy.

TiVo’s shares were up over 10 percent afterhours. More details about today’s announcement can be found here.

One thing that TiVo has been able to rely on to give it an edge: its “time warp” patent, which company officials say give it rights to basic DVR functions, including the ability to record one show while watching another.

Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo sued its rival EchoStar (NSDQ: SATS) and won back in 2006. Since then it has collected over $100 million in damages, and won an injunction ordering the shutdown of about 4 million EchoStar DVRs. But the litigation has dragged on, and EchoStar hasn’t had to shut down any of those machines–yet. After its court loss, EchoStar argued that it created a software “design-around” of TiVo’s patent, which it downloaded to the infringing DVRs.

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge David Folsom held a short trial on that design-around, and ruled it insufficient. He again ordered EchoStar to shut off its DVRs, and pay around $200 million in contempt fees.

Unsurprisingly, EchoStar appealed that ruling as well, saying it shouldn’t have to shut off its DVRs since it re-designed its software so thoroughly–hiring 15 engineers who spent more than 8,000 man-hours creating a work-around to TiVo’s patent. EchoStar lost that appeal before a three-judge panel, but now the full appeals court has agreed to hear the case. That’s a rare occurrence that signals the court is interested in setting precedent on how disagreements over patent “design-arounds” should be dealt with.

EchoStar is arguing that If TiVo wants additional penalties paid out over its patent, it should have to file another court case and re-prove its case of patent infringement. For its part, TiVo says that expedited contempt hearings–like the one it won in East Texas last year–are the right way to handle disputes about whether a re-designed product still infringes a patent.

In the upcoming hearing, TiVo will argue that the injunction it won simply won’t have much value if it has to constantly re-prove its patent was infringed. Its lawyers already argued–successfully–that EchoStar’s “design-around” didn’t make significant changes to the DVR functions.

Market reactions to the recent legal developments suggest that this might be a life-or-death battle for TiVo, which aside from the quarter in which it won its patent windfall, has been consistently unprofitable.

For several years now, TiVo has been undercut by cable and satellite operators offering DVR services without the big up-front cost of a TiVo box. But TiVo has still been able to score distribution agreements with rivals like Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) and DirecTV (NYSE: DTV), and its best shot at future profitability likely lies in those type of agreements, rather than direct sales to consumers.

Any company negotiating with TiVo now knows that if it doesn’t strike a deal, it could end up on the receiving end of a patent infringement suit–as Verizon and AT&T (NYSE: T) were last year, when those companies started pushing into the DVR market. (The lawsuits are both pending in East Texas.) While it may not be explicit, TiVo’s ability to win a patent suit surely gives it additional leverage in those negotiations.

If TiVo wins this appeal, it could still be in a position to persuade rivals that, even if they don’t want to partner with TiVo, they at least need to pay the once-pioneering company off to license its patent. But if it loses, its negotiating leverage will mostly vanish. That could be a fatal blow for a company already at the margins of the DVR business.

Please join us today, Monday, Nov. 8th, in Los Angeles at our paidContent Entertainment: The Battle for the Digital Home, where the issues surrounding DVRs will be explored in depth and TiVo’s Jeff Klugman, SVP, Products & Revenue, TiVo, will be speaking.