Yahoo rolled out software Wednesday that turns PCs into personal video recorders and allows users to view desktop-based photos and video clips on television sets, in a bid to take ground in the digital living room where Microsoft has staked an early claim with its MediaCenter software.

Dubbed Yahoo Go for TV, the free download is a swift rebranding of the Meedio software that Yahoo announced last week it had bought for an undisclosed sum. The quiet, beta release of the software is one more step toward melding the desktop with the television, as well as piping content traditionally carried over cable and the airwaves through the Internet.

“Putting a brand like Yahoo on top of a service like that is incredibly powerful at this point,” said Kurt Scherf, a principal analyst at Parks Associates in Dallas.

The “point” that Mr. Scherf referred to is the uncertain and shifting ground that the so-called digital home now occupies, as content providers, Internet companies, telephone companies, cable companies, and software companies jostle to profit from the fusing of the computer and the television. While this convergence is deemed inevitable, so far not many desktops reside in the living room next to television sets.

Mr. Scherf estimates that Microsoft has sold only 400,000 units of its digital home desktop with a built-in TV tuner since it debuted in 2003 and the end of 2005.

Yahoo could not be reached for comment.

Van Baker, an analyst with Gartner, said he doubts the new Yahoo product will have much of an impact on the evolution of the digital home.

“There aren’t that many PCs in the living room,” he says. “They are sitting on someone’s desk without a remote.”

Mr. Baker believes that Yahoo is hedging its bets on what direction the union of computer and television takes. “They are saying, ‘Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks,’” he said.