AppleInsider StaffDigital video recorder maker TiVo Inc. plans to announce a feature on Monday that will let subscribers transfer recorded television programming to Apple iPod digital music players or Sony's PlayStation portable devices.
"The increasing popularity of mobile devices for viewing video such as Apple's iPod and the PSP device demonstrate the enormous consumer demand for entertainment on the go," said Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo. "By enhancing our TiVoToGo feature, we're making it easy for consumers to enjoy the TV shows they want to watch right from their iPod or PSP — whenever and wherever they want."
TiVo said it will begin testing the feature in the coming weeks with a select group of TiVo Series2 subscribers who own the Apple Video iPod or PSP devices. The company also plans to make the feature available to its entire standalone TiVo Series2 subscriber base as early as the first quarter of next year.
Last year, TiVo made available to all its Series2 subscribers the TiVoToGo feature, which allows subscribers to transfer TV shows from their DVR to a laptop or PC over their home network. Today's announcement adds support for the Apple iPod and Sony PSP, as well as the ability to specify Season Pass recordings to conveniently transfer to the portable device via the PC overnight.
Subscribers will need to purchase certain low-cost software to facilitate the transfer of content from the PC to these portable devices. To discourage abuse or unlawful use of this feature, TiVo intends to employ "watermark" technologies on programs transferred to a portable device using the TiVoToGo feature that would enable tracking of the account from which a transferred program originated.
TiVo had previously promised to release a version of TiVoToGo for the Mac, but has yet to do so. The software remains Windows-only with no new word on a version for Mac OS X.
According to the company, the transfer process from a TiVo Series2 set-top-box to a computer occurs roughly in real-time. Therefore, an hour-long show will take an hour to transfer to the computer, then roughly another 10 minutes or so to sync to a portable device.
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14 Comments
Now if Elgato were to follow suit.....!!
I wonder if this will work on Macs? It would be rather ironic this only worked on Windows (like TTG currently only does) with Apple's iPods. Maybe this should be a wake up call to Apple that working with other companies can benefit them (as in getting more software available on their platform).
Maybe this should be a wake up call to Apple that working with other companies can benefit them (as in getting more software available on their platform).
Maybe Apple should have bought Tivo sometime ago...
Anyway, I stated that PVR feature will never arrive in a Mac. My reasoning is that Steve wants to sell TV shows rather than having people recording them, which makes more $. Now I figure Apple will release a PVR soon enough. Apple (or everybody) knows that some people cannot live without Tivo...
I wonder if this will work on Macs? It would be rather ironic this only worked on Windows (like TTG currently only does) with Apple's iPods. Maybe this should be a wake up call to Apple that working with other companies can benefit them (as in getting more software available on their platform).
Ironic? Nah, just sad. But it won't work on Macs, because TivoToGo doesn't, because its based around WMP and the features needed for it don't exist on the mac. (And just so that you know, I have the tivo-togo feature, and while its kind-of nice, it would be better if it worked off my DirectTV tivo, rather than just my stand-alone one. But my experience hasn't been the greatest. Stuff recorded in "Best" mode want to record with black bars left and right (sort of like letter-boxed, but in the wrong direction) and no one wants to fix it.)
As for a wake-up call, I doubt that too. Apple hasn't responded to any of the 1600 previous wake-up calls about the lack of software for their stuff, nor are they known to work with others to get things to work.
Well, Apple needs to take a long look at what consumers are actually doing with their entertainment. Music was one thing. People don't TiVo music off of their digital cable. They don't really TiVo music videos. The iTMS is working well for these things.
But I think selling programs (like Lost, etc.) from iTMS will flop. People use DVRs. They like the idea of buying a box, recording programs for free, and watching them whenever they want. Apple needs to build a great DVR box with great software. They will sell a lot of boxes and (even) more iPods with video capabilities.
"What? Apple makes a TiVo-like thing now? That will go along PERFECTLY with my video iPod."
"I'd love to have a TiVo-like box from Apple. (jump to a month later) I'd love to have a video iPod to put my recorded programs onto."