Good Canadian boys and girls will have more than just Santa coming to town for the holidays this year.

TiVo, the company behind the world's original digital video recorder (DVR), has broken into the Canadian marketplace just in time for the holidays.

Joe Miller, TiVo senior vice-president of consumer sales and distribution, was in Toronto this week to announce that TiVo will be available at major Canadian retailers like Best Buy, Future Shop, London Drugs and The Brick at the beginning of December.

While TiVo has been available in the United States for more than eight years, the technology and software has evolved and it is the TiVo Series 2 Dual Tuner (DT) DVR that will hit store shelves here.

"This is the newest version of our Series 2 product that's available," Miller says. "Now with the TiVo, if you have music in your home or digital photos, you can stream those to your living room. It's the TiVo user interface that makes it easy to manage content and media around your home. So there's a variety of things you can do."

Along with the original DVR capabilities, which allow users to record programs while away or watching another channel, the TiVo Series 2 is loaded with software bonuses. The newest version has the capability of recording two shows at the same time and can hold up to 80 hours of content compared to the 14 hours the original model can contain. Another popular feature of the new TiVo is SeasonPass, which will find and track a television series; even if it changes nights or the usual 30-minute episode is extended to an hour for a season finale. Or use the WishList to program specific requests into your TiVo.

"If you told the average DVR 'Clint Eastwood,' it would record everything called Clint Eastwood. But say I only want Clint Eastwood in the western movies, it would find and record only the westerns and not the Dirty Harry movies," Miller explains. "Your TiVo's smart enough to know that."

The TiVo user interface actually won the company a technology Emmy last year and Miller says it's because the company is focused 100% on this single product, unlike other companies that manufacture DVRs through a company division.

"We invented it and we've been working on this for years to bring forward the best possible end-to-end solution," says Miller.

TiVo is hitting the Canadian market with a suggested retail price of $199, but customers must also pay a subscription fee of $12.95 a month or less with a pre-paid plan.

For more information about TiVo capabilities and subscriptions, visit the company's web site online at tivo.com.