EngadgetHD managed to get a couple of screenshots of the forthcoming TiVo HME Rhapsody interface. It is nice to see this is making progress, and hopefully will be released soon. The partnership with Real Networks was originally announced at CES back in January, and it has been mentioned a couple of times since.

It is especially nice to see this coming to fruition, since TiVo’s first partnership with Real Networks, announced way back in 2001 along with the Series2, fizzled out. For those who weren’t following TiVo back then, when the Series2 was first announced TiVo announced three partnerships to bring network content to the unit – Real Networks for music and video, Radiance for movies, and JellyVision for games. That was long before TiVo acquired Strangeberry in 2004 and used their technology to develop Home Media Engine.

Edit: Well, as soon as I posted this I saw a post pop up on Gizmodo with more detail. This isn’t releasing soon, it is releasing now! Gizmodo has a slew of screenshots and an overview of the interface and usage. A bit of a mini-review. Both Gizmodo and the press release below say you can get more information, and sign up for a priority list to get this on your TiVo sooner, at http://www.tivo.com/rhapsody. However, it looks like that page isn’t up yet. Since the press release is dated the 9th (Tuesday), I would expect the page to be up sometime later today.

TiVo users get a 30-day free trial of the service. After that it is $12.95 a month for a Rhapsody subscription. Existing Rhapsody subscribers can access their existing account from the TiVo as well. Basically the TiVo is just another way to access the account – and you can access the same account from a PC, and use it with any Rhapsody-compatible music player.

And, as I type, CNet just posted an article on this.

Here’s the press release:
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