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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, January 03, 2005

TV to go: TiVo unveils portable service

Associated Press:

TiVo Inc. pioneered digital video recording as a new way of watching television — when you want it. Now it could be TV where you want it, too.

Unspoken here, of course, is that Microsoft pioneered the "where you want it" part, but whatever.

The long-awaited service feature called TiVoToGo, set to launch Monday, will give users their first taste of TiVo untethered.

TiVoToGo was first announced at CES 2004 last January, a full year ago.

Subscribers will be able to transfer their recorded shows to PCs or laptops and take them on the road — as long as the shows are not specially tagged with copy restrictions. That’s also the case for pay-per-view or on-demand movies, and some premium paid programming.

A media access code and password is assigned to each user’s account, essentially restricting the transferring and playback of shows to household members with the same access code.

Users also will be able to copy shows onto a DVD — soon after but not immediately at the service launch.

Media Center users can copy recorded shows to DVD right now, and unlike TiVoToGo, unprotected content recorded with a Media Center is completely unprotected: You don't have to logon to use it. Still, TiVo's device-like design will make this service popular, I suspect.

For now, the feature sets TiVo apart from its growing list of competitors, such as cable operators that are introducing digital video recording features into their set-top-boxes.

But not, ahem, from Microsoft's Media Center, which did it first.

[ Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink ]