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New TiVo software transfers video to iPod

updated 07:05 am EST, Mon November 21, 2005

TiVo adds iPod support


users will soon be able to transfer their recorded television content to their video iPods and Sony mobile handhelds. The company today is expected to announce a plan later today, which will let users of its popular digital video recorders download any TV show stored on their TiVo boxes onto iPods. The move will greatly expand the TiVo said it will begin testing the feature over the coming weeks and will make it available in the first quarter of next year to its TiVo Series2 subscribers as part of its TivoToGo feature, which is used by about 300,000 of its total 3.6 million subscribers. TiVo also said it plans to modify its software to let its users download shows to Sony PlayStation Portable mobile game device.

"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(TM) 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. TiVo said it 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. The TiVoToGo feature allows subscribers to transfer TV shows from their DVR to a laptop or PC over their home network. From the PC, subscribers can watch the shows, or transfer them to devices compatible with Microsoft Portable Media Center format. The announcement today added more support for the Apple's 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.

TiVo says that subscribers will need to purchase certain low-cost software to facilitate the transfer of content from the PC to these portable devices. The software is epected to cost between $15 and $30. 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.


by MacNN Staff

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  1. nemanirc

    Dedicated MacNNer

    Joined: Mar 2000

    0
    11/21, 07:51am | report spam | Reply |

    Will we see it on the Mac

    TiVo's software for the Mac is currently way behind the PC version. No transfer-to-PC for the Mac, not even compatibility with Tiger. So, I am not too excited about this…

  1. eizzumdm

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2002

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    11/21, 08:01am | report spam | Reply |

    Mac users left out again?

    The support that TiVo has had for its Mac-using TiVo owners has been horrible to non-existent. Why should we expect anything different from this company.

    There is no mention of system requirements in this article. The pessimist in me expects that the version of TiVoToGo with iPod video transfer will be no different than the current version--Windows only.

    --an increasingly disillusioned TiVo subscriber

  1. heidilux

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2003

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    11/21, 08:26am | report spam | Reply |

    Not likely...

    Indeed, the more time that passes, the more actively I'm looking for alternatives. TiVo has done nothing but drift further and further away from the mac community. The TiVoToGo feature was very exciting before it was ultimately very dissapointing. This feature will, I'm sure, follow the same path... Sounds great, but I'm sure it will only lead to dissapointment.

    ...damn you TiVo!!!

  1. MhzDoesMatter

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2002

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    11/21, 08:45am | report spam | Reply |

    iTunes vs Tivo

    Does anyone else think think TivoToGo done right will be pretty capable competitor to iTunes for TV shows?

    If you've already bought and iPod and have tivo, you can basically have the napster/yahoo subscription plan by paying the service fee and downloading all you want...but unlike music, I don't really care if I own the shows or not. Odds are I'm not going to keep them indefinitely, and may only watch them two or three times total. And would rather buy the boxed set of a season for archiving. Even the resolution should be better.

    NYT does have the service as still Window's only. But maybe Apple is the one dragging its feet. Not Tivo. How hard would it be for the two of them to enable TV show sharing between iTunes and a tivo on the local subnet like other media devices and allow you to stream the shows from within iTunes itself, also allowing iTunes to manage syncing to the iPod, possibly automatically. Not to mention this could work on both platforms, and if people own quicktime, don't they already have a MPEG4 license? So it might also be cheaper.

    But would the iTVS really have a market then?

    MhzDoesMatter

  1. LordJohnWhorfin

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    Joined: Aug 2002

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    11/21, 10:45am | report spam | Reply |

    Been doing this for weeks

    http://www.tivotool.com

  1. testudo

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    Joined: Aug 2001

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    11/21, 10:50am | report spam | Reply |

    iTunes

    If you've already bought and iPod and have tivo, you can basically have the napster/yahoo subscription plan by paying the service fee and downloading all you want.

    Well, if you already have a tivo, you should've paid for the lifetime subscription. Then there are no more fees, and then you have a 'free' subscription model and the ability to record as much as you want and keep it all. And regardless of whether you paid for the lifetime service, you can burn the stuff you want to DVD without paying even more money.

    I've looked for alternatives, but all I could find was stuff that ran on computers (usually PCs), not separate boxes. Like I want to waste my time prettying up a PC to stick next to my TV set. (A mac isn't an option since no macs come with anything close to what you'd need for an entertainment system of any ilk).

  1. testudo

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    Joined: Aug 2001

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    11/21, 11:02am | report spam | Reply |

    Re: been doing this...

    http://www.tivotool.com

    Yeah, sounds real simple too! Just need to spend hours, know what the h*** you're doing, not mind hacking apart your Tivo and risk really s******* it up. Plus the help pages aren't exactly structured or ordered in any sensible manner.

    But besides that, there's no better way to go!

  1. LordJohnWhorfin

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2002

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    11/21, 01:09pm | report spam | Reply |

    Waaa, waaa, waaa

    Trust testudo to piss all over other people's great work. Why don't you join the project and show us what a wonderful job you can do with the documentation, but you're probably too busy posting negative comments on bulletin boards...
    Oh, and by the way, lifetime subs are not available on DirecTV TiVos.

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

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    11/21, 01:15pm | report spam | Reply |

    Re: waaa, waaa, waaa

    Trust testudo to piss all over other people's great work. Why don't you join the project and show us what a wonderful job you can do with the documentation, but you're probably too busy posting negative comments on bulletin boards...


    Nah, what fun would that be. Plus, I was just indicating the usual frustration most people have with this great "open-source" thing they hear about. Documentation generally sucks. Interfaces are for noobies, and consistency is disregarded in favor of adding more and more features.

    Oh, and by the way, lifetime subs are not available on DirecTV TiVos.

    Yeah, but at $5 a month, its a lot cheaper then regular tivo, and you need DirecTV anyway. Oh, and that $5 a month covers as many Tivos as you want.

  1. ibugv4

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jun 2003

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    11/21, 02:25pm | report spam | Reply |

    tivotool

    If I had had that a year or so ago, when I had a hacked series 1, I would have been in heaven. Instead, I'm now looking at the cheaper and plentiful USB/FW based Tuner options and just making my iMac a TV in and of itself. I'd rather stare at my pretty iMac G4 than most of the Sony designed flat TVs anyway.

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