Hot on the heels of their renewed DirecTV relations, TiVo unveils a new stand-alone unit for cable (or OTA antenna) customers. The $600 TiVo HD XL is available from TiVo.com today, followed by appearances at Amazon.com and Magnolia stores.

I recently spent some time with a production TiVo HD XL unit and, as you can see, it looks quite similar to the existing TiVo HD. The obvious differences are the inclusion of a Glo Remote and a significantly higher capacity 1 terabyte drive - over 150 hours of HD recording, versus 20 provided by a standard TiVo HD. The XL’s $300 premium also gets you THX certification - something previously seen on the TiVo Series3 (RIP) and perhaps a draw for the higher-end consumer (think CEDIA) they’re targeting with this model.

The internals appear pretty much the same, although I did notice some model number and chip manufacturer variations. And despite the larger (”GreenPower“) drive, energy consumption (with TiVo-branded WiFi adapter) matches my TiVo HD: The Kill A Watt has both weighing in at about 38 watts.

Now the bad news… I’ll go ahead and surmise from the co-branded TiVo HD + TiVo HD XL documentation that a Tru2Way Series4 is still some time off. The optimist in me says next spring. But given recent state of the union comments and the power of holiday shopping, next fall is more realistic.

Chris Lanier reports that Microsoft has pledged researching support for switched digital video:

We [MS] are working to enable support for the CableLabs SDV Tuning Adaptor for Windows Media Center Digital Cable Tuners, ensuring that Windows Media Center users will be able to access switched content.

Ben Drawbaugh believes a PC-based USB connection should be sufficient to control the tuning adapter, while Chris contends new CableCARD tuners with USB ports will be required. Regardless of the implementation, I seriously doubt VMC users will have the ability to access switched channels this year. For those impacted, the best short-term solution to access all digital programming via PC is by renting a cable-co set-top box and recording programming using SageTV in conjunction with the Happauge HD PVR. (more…)

Comcast’s Fancast property has recently expanded from solely streaming (Hulu) web video, to offering Internet video downloads. Joining the likes of Amazon Unbox, CinemaNow, and Blockbuster the Fancast Media Manager allows you to rent or purchase television and movie content for Windows PC viewing. Though playback is limited to Windows, the Fancast Store (Beta) supports web purchases from other operating systems, such as Mac OS X. Combined with a variety of similar language, technology, and licensing (up to three PCs), I suspect Amazon is the silent partner powering Fancast. In fact, Amazon alluded to similar technology partnerships back in July:

The video store will [also] be accessible through the Sony Bravia Internet Video link, a $300 tower-shaped device that funnels Web video directly to Sony’s high-definition televisions. Mr. Carr said Amazon would pursue similar deals with other makers of TVs and Internet devices. “We can support both streaming and downloading,” he said.

At the end of the day, most folks prefer to watch long form content on a television. So, paying for computer-based video will remain a niche market. The only question I have is, do the ~2.5GB SD movie downloads count against my upcoming Comcast bandwidth cap?

TiVo and DirecTV have not only extended their recicrpocal do-not-sue clause, they’re getting back into bed for some new hardware. The original HD DirecTiVo supports only MPEG-2 and has been out of production for a few years, while DTV screwed around with NDS. Although they’ll likely continue marketing NDS DVRs, offering TiVo as an upsell with less subsidized hardware.

The current TiVo HD platform should be sufficient for decoding DirecTV’s MPEG-4 HD content once they integrate satellite tuners - which supports their aggressive goal of rolling this out next year. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse for Dish…

DIRECTV, Inc. (Nasdaq: DTV), the nation’s leading satellite television service provider, and TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), announced today that they have extended their current agreement, which includes the development, marketing and distribution of a new HD DIRECTV DVR featuring the TiVo(R) service, as well as the extension of mutual intellectual property arrangements.

Under the terms of the non-exclusive arrangement, DIRECTV and TiVo will work together to develop a version of the TiVo(R) service for DIRECTV’s broadband-enabled HD DVR platform. The product will support the latest TiVo and DIRECTV features and services, including TiVo’s Universal Swivel Search and TiVo KidZone. TiVo will develop the new HD DVR for an expected launch in the second half of 2009.

UPDATE TiVo has just clarified for me that the service will run on DirecTV hardware, not the TiVo HD hardware as I had assumed.

Anyone who follows tech news has already read that Google’s launching a new web browser today. While it’s way too early to pass judgment on a beta product, other than to say they’ll have an uphill battle in securing marketshare, I’ve gone ahead and tested a few media-rich sites. XM’s online guide and music streaming work fine. As do Flash-based YouTube and Hulu video playback. Though Netflix Watch Instantly throws up an incompatible browser error. Which doesn’t necessarily rule out eventual support for Microsoft DRM… but I wouldn’t bank on it in the near-term. Related, good luck finding a Microsoft Silverlight plugin - no NBCOlympics.com for you. Any other successes or failures we should know about?

Update Google documentation indicates broader plugin support. It’s probable web pages like NBC Olympics are hardcoded for specific user agent strings, thus preventing recognition and playback. Instead of reinventing the wheel, has Google leveraged existing Mozilla/Firefox plugins?

Currently, Google Chrome supports the most popular plug-ins necessary to display the Web correctly, including Flash, Acrobat Reader, Java, Windows Media Player, Real Player, QuickTime, and Silverlight.

Last month I learned that Sling Media founder Blake Krikorian backed video CDN BitGravity. Not only is Sling a customer (presumably in regards to the forthcoming Sling.com), my former leader (and Rock Band compatriot) was a participant in BitGravity’s first round of funding ($2.5 million) and has landed on their board. It’s a good time to get in - the content delivery network space has been heating up as web video takes off. Though we’re seeing a variety of players, including incumbents such as Akamai and newcomers like GridNetworks, battling for the distribution deals. While it’s not unusual to find sitting CEOs on various company boards (see: Steve Jobs), it’s my belief that Blake’s shown his hand… I’ve got no inside info, but I’m willing to bet within 6 months (either after the EchoStar acquisition anniversary or after CES) he leaves Sling for a VC firm.

So I hear Google’s introducing a new beta product today. No, not that Chrome web browser. But rather, a real update (finally!) to Picasa. Assuming all goes according to plan, Picasa 3.0 (beta, Windows) and enhanced Picasa Web Albums will both be unveiled this afternoon. The most significant new feature appears to be face recognition:

The “name tag” feature presents users with collections of photos with what it judges to be the same person, then lets them click a button to affix a name. “Once you’ve started naming people, we’ll start suggesting names for you based on similarity,” said Mike Horowitz, Google’s Picasa product manager.

Feasible photo face recognition and search is something Jeremy Toeman and I discussed several years ago… So I’m a bit surprised it’s taken this long to see these features creep into consumer software. Although I can’t say I’m surprised with the challenge in properly identifying a subject:

“Our face-matching technology works best when a person is looking at the camera,” Horowitz said. “There are a variety of factors that may limit our success in matching faces, including profile views and challenging lighting conditions like shadows.”

Of the additional new features, video slideshows with YouTube export look most appealing. I’m interested in seeing how they stack up against iPhoto and Animoto (now out of beta).