How to watch web videos on your TiVo box

You can access video podcasts like the New York Times, the Onion, and CNET right from your broadband-connected TiVo box. Video podcasts give you access to hundreds of titles available from a variety of Internet feeds – all for delivery to your TiVo box, all for free.

And, your TiVo® Premiere, Premiere XL, Series3, TiVo HD, or TiVo HD XL box can even use RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") to deliver ever-changing online content including podcasts, blogs, and other online publishers.

This feature is available on:

  • Series2
  • Series3
  • TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL
  • All TiVo Premiere boxes

Downloading videos

With your broadband-connected box, you can download a huge variety of web videos quickly and easily.

Show the steps
  1. Press the TiVo button to go to "TiVo Central."
  2. Do one of the following
    • On TiVo Premiere with HD menus: go to 'Find TV, movies, & videos' > 'Browse web videos' > 'Video podcasts.'See it
    • On all other TiVo boxes or on TiVo Premiere with SD menus: go to 'Video on Demand' > 'Free VOD and Web Videos.'See it
  3. Press the RIGHT arrow to move to the right side of the screen. There you'll find a list of content categories. Find one that interests you, and press SELECT.
  4. You'll see a list of available titles in the chosen category.
  5. Be sure to let your favorite video podcasters know that they can make their videos TiVo-compatible. See the Developer/publisher corner for details.
  6. Select a video from the list of titles.
  7. Note: If you don't see the title you want, you can choose "Custom RSS Feeds" and enter the RSS feed address you want. See How to create custom RSS feeds below for details.
  8. Choose "Watch now" to begin watching the video, "Download this program" to send the video to your "Now Playing" or "My Shows" list, "Get a Season Pass" to receive all episodes of the video, or "Past programs" to find a video that has already aired.
  9. The video will appear in your "Now Playing" or "My Shows" list. (If you selected a past video to download, the video will appear within moments. Otherwise, your video will download automatically on the date that it airs.)
 

Creating custom RSS feeds for your TiVo box

The Custom RSS Feeds feature allows you to directly access web addresses of video podcasts and channels published via RSS.

Note: This feature is available only with TiVo® Premiere, Premiere XL, Series3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL boxes.

  1. Press the TiVo button to go to "TiVo Central".
  2. Do one of the following:
    • On TiVo Premeire with HD menus: go to 'Find TV, movies, & videos' > 'Browse web videos' > 'Video podcasts.'See it
    • On all other TiVo boxes or on TiVo Premiere with SD menus: go to 'Video on Demand' > 'Free VOD and Web Videos.'See it
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the list of podcast categories and select "Custom RSS Feeds." See it
  4. Using the arrow buttons on your TiVo remote control, enter the desired RSS feed address (use a standard web address format, for example: http://www.whitehouse.gov/rss/speeches.xml).

    Note: If a URL has been previously entered and verified to work, TiVo will attempt to auto-complete the URL entry.
  5. This will bring you to the Download screen with several options:
    • "Watch now" will start showing the video.
    • "Download this program" will schedule a download of the selected video.
    • "Remove this RSS feed" will delete the current RSS feed.
    • "Past programs" will list the previous videos available for viewing from the RSS feed address.