With Super Bowl XLI (that's number 41) just days away, many consumers are rushing to upgrade to HDTV before kickoff. This week, HD means high demand, as well high definition.

The PR agency for Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT)'s Connected Home Solutions unit tried to highlight this issue, and zing cable tech rival Scientific Atlanta in the process, by directing us to a news article from Syracuse, N.Y. A very helpful gesture, as we don't typically read the daily consumer news from Syracuse. The story reported that local Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC) customers requesting HD DVR boxes before the big game were turned away last week due to a supply shortage. Ohhh nooo!

Here's the PR pitch from the agency:

The pitch included a message dated January 24 from the Website of WSYR-TV.

Unfortunately, some folks covering the cable industry didn't seem to understand the nuance of the barb, that Time Warner Cable is primarily a SA (Cisco) set-top shop. So, the PR man sent out an important correction on January 26:

Of course, Motorola is not shipping those boxes to Time Warner in Syracuse. But Motorola need not worry about the problem anymore. WSYR-TV, otherwise known as NewsChannel 9, reported that a boatload of new HD DVR boxes arrived January 26. For some reason, Moto's PR man failed to include this update from NewsChannel 9 in his update.

So here's the latest from WSYR-TV:

— Michael Harris, Chief Set-Top Shortage Investigator, Cable Digital News