CNET has published a review of the Rhapsody on TiVo HME application which TiVo recently launched. Overall the review is rather positive and it definitely has me interested in trying Rhapsody on TiVo once my S2 & S3 receive the update.

Despite all these gripes, Rhapsody on TiVo shows a lot lot of promise. When it was working smoothly, it was great to extend the Rhapsody experience to my living room and the service certainly has the TiVo “touch.” While Apple TV is great for bringing your purchased iTunes music collection to your home theater, Rhapsody on TiVo effectively brings millions of songs to your home theater. I’m definitely not ready to give it my full recommendation–it’s much too glitchy in its current state–but if TiVo and Rhapsody can smooth the kinks out, they might have a killer service on their hands.

Spotted on TiVoLovers.

TiVoLovers, EngadgetHD & Gizmodo all broke the news about the Rhapsody on TiVo partnership which TiVo first announced @ CES ‘07. According to these sites, TiVo has started to roll out a HME application which will allow Rhapsody subscribers to access more than 4 million songs from the comfort of their couch. The service will cost ~$13/month in addition to the cost of the TiVo service. According to TiVo’s recent press release, TiVo & Rhapsody will offer a 30 day free trial for new subscribers. TiVo has also created a new section on their website where you will be able to get more information about the partnership (this link is currently not available at the time of this writing).

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how much I’ll benefit from this partnership. I’m currently not a Rhapsody subscriber and since I’ve bought into Apple’s way of doing music I’m not sure that I will have a use for this service. That being said, this is some great news for anybody who does subscribe to Rhapsody or for anybody who has a Rhapsody compatible device (you can’t play music that you’ve subscribed to on your iPod). Having access to 4 million songs from the comfort of your couch is definitely a nice feature.

Let me know if your TiVo has access to the Rhapsody service. I checked both of my TiVos and neither of them have been updated with this new HME app.

More on this later when I actually have time to blog….

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — TiVo Inc. is introducing music to its mix of entertainment services, offering owners of the company’s digital video recorders access through their TVs to the Rhapsody music service.

The new feature announced Tuesday means TiVo subscribers with broadband-connected set-top boxes will be able to listen to music streamed over the Internet from Rhapsody’s service. The service, now part of Rhapsody America, a new joint venture between RealNetworks Inc. and Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks, has a catalog of more than 4 million songs.

Tivo and Rhapsody view their partnership as a way to cross-market to boost their subscriber bases.

The deal also marks the latest in a string of features TiVo has added to promote itself as a premium service. TiVo has teamed with Amazon.com for movie downloads and with Yahoo Inc. for photo-sharing. It also offers direct access to some online content and lets users share home movies with other TiVo users.

Whether users access it through TiVo, a PC or portable gadgets, the Rhapsody service will cost $12.99 per month on top of the $12.95 or more TiVo regularly charges.

Rhapsody is considered one of the leading providers — along with Napster Inc. — of subscription music, where users can listen to as much as they want as long as they continue to pay the monthly fee. It’s not as popular as a la carte download services such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store. Rhapsody also offers songs for 99 cents per download, but not through TiVo.

TiVo says it will roll out the Rhapsody feature in stages with priority for current customers who sign up. They can try Rhapsody for 30 days free.

Apparently this is the week of TiVo videos. In this video, Jim Denney (TiVo Vice President, Product Marketing) talks about a couple of things including the recent Rhapsody partnership as well as the TiVo Comcast partnership.

Taken from Technology Evangelist, spotted on TiVoLovers.

TiVo and RealNetworks have announced a partnership whereby TiVo subscribers will be able to access their Rhapsody account via their TiVo.
I’m not a Rhapsody subscriber so this news doesn’t really interest me other then the fact that I am always interested in any new partnerships that TiVo announces. For anybody who is a Rhapsody user this sounds like a great thing. Anybody want to voice their opinion?

TiVo said its subscribers will be able to access Rhapsody directly from their video recorders later this year, and Nokia said it would make Rhapsody available on a new, Wi-Fi-enabled tablet PC. Meanwhile, iRiver announced plans to incorporate Rhapsody into new portable music players this year. The company will optimize a version of its Clix player, which it had previously used to highlight MTV’s Urge music subscription service, for Rhapsody. It said it will also launch a new Wi-Fi-enabled player that will be able to access the service without syncing with a PC.