TiVo has partnered with Music Choice to offer several hundred free music videos via the TiVoCast service. You can download the videos today if you own a broadband connected Series 2, Series 3 or TiVo HD (press release).

ALVISO, Calif., Dec 05, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), and Music Choice, the award-winning multi-platform music network, today announced the immediate availability of Music Choice on broadband-connected TiVo(R) DVRs. Music Choice will deliver its wide-ranging catalog of several thousand music videos and original programming to the television through the TiVoCast service. At launch nearly a thousand video titles are available and this number is expected to grow significantly in the coming weeks.

“Be it music, movies or memories, our broadband strategy continues to focus on delivering consumers what they want, when they want it,” said Tara Maitra, Vice President and GM of Content Services for TiVo Inc. “By bringing TiVo users Music Choice, we’re giving our subscribers access to the most extensive music offering available, delivering thousands of music videos straight to the TV. We think this service will be extremely popular among the TiVo audience.”

“We are thrilled to make our highly-popular music-related content available to TiVo users,” said Christina Tancredi, Executive Vice President of Music Choice. “This exciting relationship with TiVo allows us to extend the reach of our content to even more consumers across the country, and we’re confident once TiVo users try it, they’ll be hooked.”

By combining the TiVo interface with Music Choice content, TiVo has quickly emerged as the entertainment platform for music lovers. TiVo subscribers will be able to browse through a variety of music genres using TiVo’s easy-to-use and intuitive search interface, breezing through Music Choice content, featuring Rock, Pop, Hip Hop, R&B, Country, Latino, and Kids’ videos, Music Choice Originals featuring today’s hottest established and emerging artists, as well as daily entertainment news clips.

When considering the robust Music Choice offering and the recently announced availability of Rhapsody, with the current Internet radio offering from Live365, TiVo users truly have a 360-degree musical playground. Users can conceivably watch a documentary about an artist, add the artist to a playlist for their mobile device and then watch that artist over and over via music video.

Legendary VJ and music personality Martha Quinn has been at the forefront of music entertainment since her days as one of the most recognizable VJs in the world, and is one of many music lovers excited about the new feature on TiVo.

“From the time I started as a VJ, one thing has been obvious — music fans love to see their favorite artists via videos,” said Quinn, one of the first MTV VJs and now host of a popular Sirius satellite radio music show. “In a way, I see this as a new video revolution whereby fans pick the videos they want to watch and when, both saving and creating the video stars of today. TiVo and Music Choice have delivered exactly what fans have been asking for.”

All of the content on TiVoCast, including Music Choice, is offered at no additional charge as part of the existing TiVo service subscription fee. TiVo subscribers can access TiVoCast content through TiVo Central.

Over the past year, TiVo has done a wonderful job establishing partnerships with several third party content provides including Amazon Unbox, Rhapsody, One True Media, Photobucket/Picasa Web Albums and multiple TiVoCast channels. Each of these partnerships has helped to differentiate TiVo from a standard cable company DVR. Keep up the good work TiVo!

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As a side note, I would like to thank Craig for putting me down as his TiVo rewards referrer. If you’d like to put me down as your referrer, all you need to do is enter my email address (raianoat AT gmail DOT com) when you activate your TiVo. Thanks Craig. It really is appreciated!

Update (12/05/2007):  I don’t know how I missed it but, Nickelodeon has actually been available since October of this year.  Sorry about that……

TiVo seems to be adding new TiVoCast content on a weekly basis. This time around, they’ve added Nickelodeon as a TiVoCast channel.

You can subscribe to Nickelodeon via TiVoCentral online or by accessing the following menu item on your TiVo: TiVo Central -> Find Programs -> Download TV & Movies -> Nickelodeon.

Thanks for the tip Alex!

A concerned Cox subscriber contacted me earlier today to find out if I knew anything about the Cox partnership which TiVo officially announced back in August ‘06. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I haven’t heard anything about the partnership in a long time. In fact, the last time I remember reading something about the partnership was in April of this year. Come to think of it, TiVo didn’t even mention the partnership in their most recent financial results announcement. Has the partnership gone away or have I just missed some news?

Earlier today, TiVo announced that they’ve partnered up with both photobucket and Google’s Picasa Web Albums (screenshots after the press release).

ALVISO, Calif., Dec 03, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that all broadband-connected TiVo DVRs can take advantage of viewing and sharing their digital photos directly on the television set. By working with two of the most popular online photo services, Photobucket and Picasa Web Albums(TM) from Google, TiVo subscribers can easily access their own digital photos as well as those shared by friends and family using the Emmy award-winning TiVo user interface. Photos will be displayed at the highest possible resolution on each TiVo box, meaning TiVo Series3(TM) and TiVo HD subscribers can see their memories in full high definition.

“At TiVo we’re focused on the entire entertainment experience, from movies to music, and in this case — memories,” said Jim Denney, Vice President of Product Marketing at TiVo. “By working with these well-respected and popular photo-sharing partners TiVo enables families to share their pictures in new, fun ways. TiVo continues to show our commitment to differentiated product offerings by allowing subscribers to share their memories on the best picture frame in the house — their television.”

“Personal media sharing is clearly moving beyond the desktop,” said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket. “Photobucket helps its users creatively express themselves and share their lives with friends and family. Be it through cell phones, computers or TVs, we aim to offer our users the best service for searching, uploading and sharing this content. TiVo gives our audience an excellent way to bring Photobucket into their living rooms.”

Among other features, TiVo subscribers will be able to customize their photo viewing capabilities by searching community photos of interest by keyword, all using the intuitive TiVo search interface. For example, sports fanatics can create a custom slide show of their favorite team or player and dog lovers can sit back and enjoy a slide show composed of literally hundreds of puppy photos from around the world, all with the power of the peanut-shaped remote.

“Families and friends who use Picasa Web Albums to stay connected with each other’s lives are often looking for more ways to share those important photos,” said Mike Horowitz, product manager for Picasa Web Albums at Google. “Broadband-connected TiVo DVRs provide a fun way for people to view their own favorites or bring their photos out for everyone in the living room to see.”

TiVo subscribers can access the photo sharing application through the Music, Photos, Products & More screen on their TiVo DVR, and is offered at no additional charge as part of the existing TiVo service subscription fee. TiVo boxes are available at leading consumer electronic retailers including Best Buy and Circuit City. See http://www.TiVo.com for details.

Maybe I’m just being selfish but, I really would have loved to have seen TiVo partner with flickr instead of photobucket or Picasa Web. In any case, it’s great to see that TiVo continues to develop and release new TiVo HME applications. I’m really anxious to see how the HD photos will look on my Panasonic HDTV!

If you have $1599 (after $200 rebate) to spend, you might to consider picking up a Series 3 TiVo with 2 Teraybtes worth of storage from WeaKnees. In case you’re wondering, two Terabytes will allow you to record up to 292 hours of high definition content or ~2778 hours worth of standard definition content at the lowest quality setting. In order to come up with two Terabytes worth of storage, the DVR utilizes both an internal and external drive.

I wonder how long it will be before we see a similar offer from my friends over at DVRupgrade.com….

Spotted on the WeakNees blog.

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As a side note, I would like to thank David for putting me down as his TiVo rewards referrer. If you’d like to put me down as your referrer, all you need to do is enter my email address (raianoat AT gmail DOT com) when you activate your TiVo. Thanks David. It really is appreciated!

I know I’m a little late to report this but I guess it’s better late than never…

DVRupgrade and Neuros have partnered up to offer $3500 if you can get your TiVo to talk with a Neuros OSD. A post over at the DVRupgrade forums provides more information:

People love the TiVo DVR for its robust program guide and related features, and people love the OSD for the portability of its recordings. So, we’ve come up with a bounty for a project that combines the best of both devices. Namely for the OSD to piggyback on the TiVo’s recording schedule and make portable MPEG-4 recordings of those shows that you choose. It’s essentially like having TiVo simultaneously record onto a portable device at the same time that its recording to it’s hard drive. With no file transfer or conversion, you could have all your favorite shows automatically on your laptop, iPod, iPhone, Blackberry or whatever portable device you prefer. Ultimately, this functionality would be perfect for commuters, road-warriors or anyone that spends their days on the go.

Along with this bounty, DVRupgrade is also offering $30 off the OSD if you use the following coupon code: HACK-THE-NEUROS-1207.

Thanks for dropping me an email Dave.

Mike Swanson has developed a Windows Vista gadget which lists the shows that your TiVo has recorded. This gadget uses the same query interface that several other applications have used in the past.

I don’t have Windows Vista so I haven’t been able to try it out for myself. I wish I could because, it looks like a neat little app. If I ever get some free time, maybe I’ll develop a similar Dashboard widget for OS X.

Thanks for sending this in Rich!

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As a side note, I would like to thank M. Brendan for putting me down as their TiVo rewards referrer. If you’d like to put me down as your referrer, all you need to do is enter my email address (raianoat AT gmail DOT com) when you activate your TiVo. Thanks M. Brendan. It really is appreciated!