TiVo plans to bring YouTube and RSS into the living room

TiVo, the personal video recorder, will soon offer YouTube videos streaming from the Internet on their boxes. This partnership stems from YouTube’s decision to open up its platform to developers, which Google publicly announced yesterday (our coverage).

TiVo is not the first to partner up with YouTube to bring web videos into the living room, Apple launched the functionality last year in its Apple TV box. However, TiVo is used by many more users than the Apple TV, and this is an important next step in bridging the gap between content on your computer and content on your television.

The service will be available on TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD set-top boxes. There will also be the obvious requirement of having a broadband connection to stream the video. This is significant. TiVo has sold 1.7 million TiVo boxes and only 800,000 have the necessary broadband connection according to The New York Times.

Buried in The New York Times piece is word that the company also plans on bringing an RSS reader (which they refer to as an “R.S.S. reader”) of sorts into the box as well. While it’s not clear if this functionality will eventually expand beyond subscribing to videos via RSS, that would seem a logical extension. Soon you could find yourself doing many of the things you do daily on your computer, from the comfort of your couch.

The TiVo/YouTube functionality is expected to be available at some point later this year.

update: It looks like Apple may be looking to bring DVR functionality to the Apple TV in a patent uncovered by AppleInsider. This sets up the device in more direct competition with TiVo — especially when TiVo gains the YouTube channel that Apple TV has.