TiVo rolling out new update for TiVo HD and Series 3 boxes, adds YouTube support

TiVo is rolling out the Summer 2008 Service Update 9.4 for it’s customers with a TiVo HD or Series 3 unit.  My TiVo HD just received the update the other day and it brings some very nice new features, as well as bug fixes.

TiVo lists the following features as being added in this service update:

Play or Delete a Folder
Play or delete an entire folder of programs with a single button press (including kids shows, music videos ext). Highlight a folder and press PLAY to play all the shows in sequence. Pres CLEAR to delete the entire folder.

Browse the Guide Any Time
Press the GUIDE button to display the program guide over what you’re watching: live TV, a previously recorded program, or even a video download.

Jump Forward in the Guide
When the Guide is on-screen, press the ADVANCE to jump 24 hours ahead. Press INSTANT REPLAY to go back 24 hours.

Find a Station in the Guide
Now you can search for a station “call sign” within the Guide, e.g. KQED, WPIX, MSNBC. When viewing the program guide, press ENTER to bring up Guide Options, then SELECT Find by call sign.

Toggle Closed Captioning On and Off
The Closed Captioning icon in the Channel Banner now toggles closed captioning on and off.

Review Thumb Ratings
To display a list of all programs that you have rated, select Find Programs, then TiVo Suggestions. Press ENTER to bring up the Review Thumbs screen

Along with the new features listed above, this update brings YouTube support.  You can access YouTube videos by going to the Find Programs & Downloads screen, then into the Download TV, Movies, & Web Video section.  I found that this feature works nicely for viewing some quick YouTube content.

Also not listed anywhere, 9.4 is rumored to enable native H.264 decoding on the Series S3 & TiVo HD models.  H.264 is required so that the TiVo can play the YouTube videos and it’s hopeful that this ability will help with allowing TiVo to use Amazon’s upcoming streaming video service at some point in the future.   What I haven’t been able to test yet, or find out an answer for, is if the TiVo itself can handle H.264 decoding for movies transferred from a PC or Mac, or better yet, allow for real-time streaming of content from a PC or Mac.  If it can, this would be a huge step forward for users wanting to rip movies to watch them on their TiVo.  Today, TiVo can only view content in MPEG-2 format.

I’ve been a TiVo customer since 2003, and this update seems to bring the largest selection of new features that I’ve seen in quite a while.  These features aren’t just new, but also largely seem to be useful to most users.