DVR Chatter

TiVo has announced that they've released TiVo Desktop version 2.6, which (if you pay the $25 upgrade fee for the "Plus" version) adds the ability to subscribe to selected video RSS feeds for viewing on your TiVo unit.

In order for this automatic subscription function to work, you pay a one time licensing fee of $24.95 for the codecs necessary to transcode various web video formats to MPEG-2. The web videos get downloaded to your computer and automatically transcoded to the right format for TiVo before being pushed to the unit for availability in your "Now Playing" list.

Word is that the update also provides higher bitrate video conversions than had previously been available from TiVo Desktop and that AC3 audio is now left alone during conversion.

I'm still undecided about paying the "Plus" fee (I've got more than enough software to transcode video), but I've downloaded and installed the free version of 2.6 and we'll see whether the automatic RSS features are enough to entice me to "Plus" it out.