NEW YORK (Reuters) - TiVo Inc said that starting Thursday, some of its customers will be able to watch online videos from Google Inc's YouTube site directly on their televisions, adding a feature it hopes will help draw in new subscribers.


TiVo will over the next few weeks upgrade the digital video recorders of users who have its high definitions models -- the Series3 and TiVo HD DVR. Only a fraction of TiVo's 3.8 million subscribers have those units.

The free upgrade will allow users with high speed home Internet connections to search, browse and view the hundreds of millions of video available on YouTube.

Eventually, users will be able to log onto their YouTube accounts directly from their TiVo boxes and create playlists and view specific channels.

Terms of the deal between Google's YouTube and TiVo were not disclosed.

TiVo has in recent years developed add-on features to help differentiate its DVRs from that of cable and satellite TV providers who often offer basic DVRs at cheaper prices.

TiVo, whose service costs about $13 a month, said its total subscriptions dropped by nearly 12 percent in the first quarter ending in April, and its most lucrative users -- called "TiVo-owned" because they pay fees directly to TiVo -- were flat at 1.7 million.

TiVo originally said in March that it was working on the YouTube feature.

(Reporting by Frankling Paul; Editing by Gary Hill)
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