First announced in November, TiVo Desktop 2.3 has finally been released! This software update is notable for two major enhancements (maybe they should have versioned it 3.0). First, the Desktop software adds support for scheduling of downloads in a Season Pass-esque fashion. Second, if you upgrade to Desktop Plus (at a cost of $24.95) you gain access to TiVo-licensed codecs for MPEG-4 conversion. The PSP and iPod are supported, as they both play MPEG-4s out of the box. Additionally, the licensing fee includes an MPEG-2 codec for PC playback if you happen to need one. You could overpay foreign hackers to slap a custom GUI on ffmpeg, or you could pay TiVo less for more. Support for Windows portable devices (phone, PDA, PMC) is still present and free of charge.
Stay tuned as I dig around in the new software… I’m interested in discovering if previous (unsupported) conversion methods still work, what sort of quality and speed we can expect with the new conversion tool, find out what (if any) changes have been made under the hood, etc.
UPDATE: Some new info…
(Thanks for the tip, Alex!)