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 TiVo will announce today four new broadband capabilities for TiVo Series 2 and Series 3 customers as well as a few other features. No, it doesn't include the much-anticipated movie download service. But it's there are a few nuggets worth getting excited about.
Inter-TiVo Broadcast Channel TiVo users will be able to share home videos with friends and family who also have TiVo by setting up personal channels. Think TiVoTube. Look for cats, Mentos squirting out of coke bottles and toddlers nodding off in their food coming to a TiVo near you. In all fairness, it could be a cool feature for those who never get around to burning that promised DVD. Pricing is expected to be about $4.00 per month after a trial use. Internet Video Downloads Using the TiVo Desktop software, you'll be able to place non-copy-protected videos in a folder for 'conversion' to MPEG-2 for playback on your TiVos. This is not a movie download services such as the services announced by iTunes, Unbox or XBox. Instead, it's the ability playback QuickTime, WMV and MPEG-4 videos downloaded from non-copy-protected sources such as podcasts or anything you might have on your computer. For users who don't yet have TiVo Desktop software, it will cost $24.95. Upgrades will be free for existing customers. Hopefully, aggregation and podcasts/RSS support will be stronger than the current TiVo podcast support. CBS Content Downloads TiVo will be expanding it's TiVoCast service to include original programming from CBS including CBS Sportsline. If CBS provides some original programming and not just teasers to other CBS shows, it could be a nice add. Unified Search TiVo will be launching unified search next year. With broadcast, cable and broadband, the ability to search all content from one interface will be a necessity.
TiVoCast Expanding to Series 3 Customers As part of this announcement, TiVo will soon be adding TiVoCast to Series 3 units. Series 3 customers could use an upgrade so that they get what Series 2 users have with all that HD goodness. Guru Guides Recommendations of TV shows and movies from celebrities. Time line on the new features was vague. It sounds like we'll be seeing this trickle out in standard TiVo fashion through the end of the year. TiVo 
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