TiVo has announced the launch of its new TiVo Premiere Series 4 digital video recorders. These new fourth-generation models will be known as the TiVo Premiere and TiVo Premiere XL. The new Premiere Series 4 edition boxes will feature a new and greatly overhauled interface that looks to be improved, but stays true to the TiVo roots.

The TiVo Premiere will retail for $299 and offer a 320GB hard drive, which will yield about 45 hours of HD recording. The larger TiVo Premiere XL is THX certified and uses a 1TB hard drive, which yields about 150 hours of HD recording; it will retail for $499 when released.

What might be the most interesting development is the announcement of a new Bluetooth remote with a QWERTY slide-out keyboard which will make the input of things much faster, but no price was announced for this add-on remote. Both units will offer CableCARD support as well as Ethernet, USB 2.0 and eSATA ports and will be able to output video at resolutions as high as 1080p, depending on the connection and content restrictions.

Both TiVo models will offer full Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon video support. In addition, TiVo will order a wireless N adapter that will be available for an additional $90, as well as a phone line adapter which will cost those that need one an additional $30. The TiVo Premiere units offer no support for satellite or cable converter boxes. From our understanding there will not be any direct software upgrade path for current series 3 owners to the new series 4 software, but whispers seem to suggest that at least some of these new features might make their way over to the series 3 at some point in the future;  we would not count on it.

As has become the situation lately, TiVo offered no additional information about the promised and delayed new DirecTV TiVo HD DVR that so many customers have been asking about. From what we have been told, TiVo referred all questions about the new DirecTV TiVo HD DVR to DirecTV, with the company indicating that they had nothing to say at this time. Our moles suggest that development continues, but with DirecTV ready to launch the HR24, the company is currently focused on that for the time being.

Several sources have suggested that the HR24 is the latest reason for the delay, while others suggest that the need for a more powerful box to power the new DirecTV TiVo HD DVR is necessary and that comes in the form of the HR24; and only now will development be able to finish, as some believe that the new DirecTV TiVo HD DVR will use the same motherboard or one very close to the HR24. While a release time frame is anyone’s guess, those we have spoken with seem to think that it will at least be summer or early fall before we finally see the release of the new DirecTV TiVo HD DVR. It does seem at least necessary that DirecTV get the new DirecTV TiVo HD DVR released before the end of 2010 for sure.