TiVo announced a deal to bring Disney content downloads to their boxes, via CinemaNow, back in May, and a similar deal with Jaman all the way back in January. But little had been said about the deals since the announcements, until now.

Jaman.com content should become available on broadband connected TiVo boxes starting today. Similar to Amazon Video On Demand, Jaman content will be available for purchase or rent with prices starting at $1.99. Jaman’s library contains internationally-acclaimed films, including Indie and Film Festival Favorites, Best of Bollywood and Documentaries. Titles include Oscar nominees Girl with a Pearl Earring, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Supersize Me, as well as independent gems like Oil and Ice, Bollywood greats Devdas and Chokher Bali and anime landmarks Ghost in the Shell and Robotech. Jaman will also offer some content for download free of charge.

Disney content, provided through CinemaNow, will be available sometime next week. Disney content will be available for rental with prices starting at $2.99. Both classic favorites such as Dumbo and Fox & The Hound and newer films like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest will be available.

And while the focus of the deal has been Disney content, which is not available through Amazon VOD, it does include CinemaNow content in general. So this will give users a great deal more content to choose from.

Both should show up under Find Programs & Downloads -> Download TV, Movies, & Web Video. The content, as with Amazon VOD, will be in standard definition. However, TiVo is working to add high-definition downloads to the TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL.

I can’t wait for the HD downloading option. I also hope that TiVo is working on streaming options, now that they have streaming in place for YouTube. I’d like to see streaming from Amazon VOD, and then Netflix, Hulu, and other sites. That would make TiVo the box to have for online content.

Another channel joins the TiVoCast lineup, this time it is XYZ TV.

Find all the newest and greatest music videos, video game reviews, extreme sports, and behind the scenes coverage.

Subscribe online or on your TiVo via Find Programs & Downloads -> Download TV, Movies, & Web Video -> Browse Other Videos -> All -> XYZ TV

Save $50 on the TiVo HD through October 30th. This is a limited time promotion from TiVo, shipping is also free.

A clever little short horror film from arieScope for Halloween - The TiVo.

Picked up from Gizmodo Australia.

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TiVo Blog brought to my attention a new application for the iPhone. It adds a TiVo photo server application to the iPhone that allows you to view photos stored on your iPhone on your TiVo over the network without first moving them to a PC or Mac. The app’s creator, Chris Lundie, is also posting in TiVoCommunity. The app is just $0.99 in the iPhone App Store. And TiVo Blog has posted a number of screen shots.

This weekend Amazon VOD has a few deals available. First up Fight Club, Sex and the City, and 21 are $0.99 rentals, and Definitely, Maybe and Run Fat Boy Run are $1.99 rentals.

Second the October Scary Movie Sale continues this week with ten titles - though two of them are shared with the general sale, and I really don’t see how they’re scary movies or thrillers: Sex and the City and 21. I suppose they may be scary to someone, the though of having to watch Sex and the City is kind of frightening to me. But the other eight titles make more sense: Hard Candy, John Carpenter’s Vampires, The Devil’s Rejects, Fallen, The Seventh Sign, Body Snatchers, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and Scream and Scream Again.

And they’re still running an Adam Sandler movie sale - seven of his films to purchase at $5.99 each: Anger Management, Mr. Deeds, Punch-Drunk Love, 50 First Dates, Spanglish, Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights, and Big Daddy.

EngadgetHD has reviewed a pre-release copy of the Nero Liquid TV | TiVo PC software announced recently. (Nero has promised me a review copy of the final release.) The review is a mixed one, which isn’t too surprising. The main issue is the cost, which is what I expect. I too think the $99/year service fee (after the first year) is far, far too high in a market full of products with low guide fees, or even free.

I don’t think the $99 software-only or $199 with-hardware purchase pricing is too bad, especially as it’ll probably see discounts, but the ongoing fee is just too high. That’s the same yearly fee as a standalone TiVo, and you don’t get all the features of a standalone box with the PC software. I think they could probably get away with $49 a year, even the free MythTV has a $20 year fee for the guide data license. A little more to enjoy the TiVo interface would be reasonable, I think.

But pricing aside, EngadgetHD also found some real issues with the product. Some of them are minor issues, nits really, but some seem much more major to me. The software apparently only works with tuners that have Broadcast Driver Architecture (BDA) drivers, and not all tuner/capture cards do. Notably it seems CableCARD tuners do not, so the software does not recognize CableCARD tuners in PCs that have them. That’s really unfortunately, IMHO, and I think that should be a priority for TiVo and Nero to fix. EngadgetHD also reports that the software didn’t support Clear QAM tuning, despite the included hardware being QAM-capable. That compounds the problem with being unable to use CableCARDs. At least if Clear QAM worked users would be able to tune a few digital cable channels, generally their locals. I’m kind of hoping this was an issue with the pre-release software, because if the production software is missing any QAM support that’s a major oversight in my opinion.

There are some other issues which sound like 1.0 syndrome, things that could be fixed with relatively minor updates to the software. Issues in this category include the lack of a grid style EPG (only the TiVo Guide is available), not showing episode titles while browsing content on other TiVos, and some usability issues with setup and configuration. But those sound minor to me compared to the lack of CableCARD, or any QAM, support and the crazy pricing.

On the plus side it has nearly all of the DVR features of a standalone TiVo. You of course get Season Passes and WishLists, but it can also record the Live TV buffer if you decide to keep a show you’re watching - something Windows Media Center doesn’t do. And it will auto-convert recordings to other formats, which is a more direct version of TiVo Desktop Plus’s auto-transfer and auto-transcode feature for standalone TiVos. And recordings are standard MPEG-2 files with the .mpg extension, so they should be readily usable in other software.

And, of course, being on a PC, and the software coming from Nero, you have additional features such as being able to burn your recordings to DVD.

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it to get my own impression, but from the EngadgetHD review it sounds like it might be worth waiting for an update to the software to correct some of these issues. Or at least waiting to see if any of them are fixed before the consumer release. And, of course, seeing if they get a little more sane about pricing.

This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who uses a DVR, or anyone who regularly reads this blog, as I’ve posted on this before, but DVR viewing is having a growing impact on television ratings. USA Today highlighted this in an article Monday.

According to Nielsen Media research’s numbers, these are the five most time-shifted shows for the week of September 22-28.

Those are some pretty significant increases over the number of people who watched the episodes ‘live’. 28% of homes now have DVRs, up from 20% last fall. While new DVR users are reportedly not as fanatic about recording their programs, the sheer increase in numbers is having a growing impact on network programming. And the biggest impact is from viewers in their 30s, a prime audience. While the seven day numbers look good, networks still sell advertising based on lower three day ratings numbers. The industry needs to accept that DVRs are not only hear to stay, but rapidly consuming the market, and largely in the most valuable demographics, so advertising sales will need to adapt. It is really up to the networks to collectively take a stand and force change on the ad industry.