Yahoo has released a free application that transforms your computer into a digital video recorder that you can hook up to your television.

The Yahoo! Go TV software provides an interface that can be used from a living room couch, featuring large buttons and icons. And as an added bonus you get some free internet television content in the form of music videos.

A television tuner card is required to record television shows, but the software is worth a look even without one, because the application also plays photo slideshows, DVDs, as well as movies and music stored on your computer hard drive.

Yahoo! Go TV essentially gets you a Viiv PC without the Viiv price tag and the need for Windows XP Media Center Edition. If Yahoo would only provide a version for OS X or Linux, then they can really give Intel and Microsoft a run for their money.

Yahoo Go TV is available for US users only, but the site will still let you download and install the application from anywhere in the world. It will check your location based on the IP address, but instructing your firewall to block all traffic from "YGTV.exe" will solve that problem (although it will also disable all the online features). You could try using a proxy server based in the US, but that requires a bit more of an effort.

Tags: yahoo go TV, yahoo, intel viiv, microsoft, windows xp media center edition, WinMCE

27 Apr 2006