Out of the more than 3 million total TiVo subscribers in the world, about 300,000 order their services via a broadband connection, Denney said. While TiVo does not release how many people use its TiVoToGo service, Denney said a recent user survey showed that a large number have the capability to do so. The new feature follows a partnership between Yahoo and TiVo that would allow consumers to program TiVo boxes from a Yahoo page.
To discourage abuse or unlawful use of this feature, TiVo's Denney said, the company will use "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. Representatives of Apple and Sony did not reply with requests for comment on this story. "The service will automatically prepare and transcode the television show to one of these portable devices using industry-standard format designs," Denney said.įor Apple's video iPod, that meant TiVo needed to support video compression standard H.264, also known as MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding).įor Sony's PSP, it meant that TiVo needed to include a format version of MPEG-4, a separate video compression standard.
In April, TiVo added support for devices compatible with the Microsoft Portable Media Center format.ĭenney said his company only worked briefly with Apple and Sony on the design aspects of the TiVo service to keep the individual integrity of its products intact.
Introduced in January 2005, TiVoToGo lets subscribers transfer TV shows from their DVR to a laptop or PC over their home network. The rollout increases the number of devices with which TiVoToGo can interact. If successful, TiVo plans to roll out the service to its more than 3 million subscribers by the first quarter of 2006. Tests begin in a few weeks with only a handful of TiVo subscribers, the company said. TiVo users can pause live shows and program their systems to record TV broadcasts and even skip commercials. TiVo's digital video recorders, or DVRs, use hard drives to store large amounts of content.
To use the new service, subscribers will need to purchase certain low-cost software to allow TiVo to transfer content from the PC to these portable devices, Denney said. "I can sit in front of the PC in the morning and say I want this show, this show and this special event, and transfer over the file to a PC-happening in about real time-and you could watch it on your mobile device," said Jim Denney, director of product marketing at TiVo. The Alviso, Calif.-based company, whose box has become synonymous with the digital recording of television programs, said Monday that it will be testing a version of its TiVoToGo mobile service so that customers will be able to synchronize downloads of their programs from their TiVo Series2 boxes and transfer them to portable devices via their PC. TiVo is looking to pull in more customers by hooking up with two of the most popular mobile devices on the market: Apple Computer's iPod and Sony's PlayStation Portable.