Anyone that’s talked to me in the last year or two probably knows that I love-with-a-capital-L my Tivo.  It looks like I’m going to have even more reason to love it in the near future.  Amazon is teaming with Tivo to offer video dowloads from Amazon’s Unbox service straight to Tivo, and it looks like you’ll be able to rent or buy.  They’re doing a limited test but they expect to roll it out to all Tivo subscribers in the near future.  One limitation is that the Tivo has to be hooked up to a broadband network (luckily ours is hooked into our network) so Tivo users that still have their systems updated via dial-up will either have to hook their systems into their home network or go without. Here are details from the announcement:

    To activate the service, subscribers will simply log on to
Amazon.com and follow a few simple steps to establish a link between
their broadband connected TiVo Series2(TM) or Series3(TM) box and
their Amazon account. Once the initial set up is complete, eligible
movies or television shows from Amazon Unbox can be downloaded
directly to the customer’s TiVo box. After the movie has been
downloaded, the title will automatically appear in the subscriber’s
TiVo "Now Playing" list with all of their other recorded shows, easily
viewed with just a click of the TiVo remote.

    Customers can purchase television episodes for $1.99, purchase
most movies for between $9.99 and $14.99, or rent movies starting at
$1.99. As an added bonus, all purchased videos are automatically
stored in each customer’s "Your Media Library" at Amazon.com for
future access and download.

Su-weet!

I truly hope this gets going, but I’m waiting to see it actually launched before I get too excited. I was stoked when Tivo said they were doing a deal with Netflix but that deal seems to have died on the vine.  If the Tivo/Unbox service does indeed go off as planned and does work as advertised then our Netflix subscription might be going the way of all flesh.