Now Netflix has joined the party, offering some real clout to TiVo as not just a DVR, but as a content delivery service.

NewTeeVee has the story for now, although a TiVo representative promised us "big news" earlier tonight (unfortunately, about the same time as I was tuning in for the World Series/Obama ad/McCain-Larry King interview). It's not on the wires yet, although I'm sure I'll receive confirmation in the morning.

Dave Zatz has the press release, which adds additional details: you'll need to have both a Netflix and a TiVo subscription, plus a TiVo Series3, TiVo HD, and TiVo HD XL. If you have all that, however, the movies and other content can be played via the TiVo box for free.

Movies will be streamed either from a wired or wireless Internet connection, and must apparently be specified and managed via the Netflix Web site (and not from the TiVo interface, apparently).

The Netflix-TiVo partnership is in testing, and should be rolled out in December.

Oh, and I'll just apologize right now for the horrible MS Paint job to the left.