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Media (Apple) Media Businesses Portables Television Apple Hardware

TiVoToGo For iPods and PSPs 150

Posted by Hemos from the try-to-remain-alive dept.
BushCheney08 writes "According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, TiVo is expanding its TiVoToGo service to allow recordings to be viewed on video iPods and PSPs. Files will be transcoded in real time and will include digital watermarks to try to cut down on piracy. The service begins beta-testing for select subscribers today, with a widespread rollout scheduled for early next year. An AP article is also available at Forbes."
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TiVoToGo For iPods and PSPs More

TiVoToGo For iPods and PSPs

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  • It's surprising to me too! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:15AM (#14081641)
    More than 50 percent of TiVo's 3.6 million subscribers have tried TiVoToGo, and nearly half use it regularly, Denney said. The number of regular users was higher than TiVo expected, and "it was surprising to us, to be honest,'' he said.

    Based on how slow the transfers are for Tivo2Go I too am surprised that Tivo has that many people using it. Granted, I was only using it over wireless but I assume that's what most of the Tivo2Go users are using as well. It was taking *more* than real-time to transmit a show to the computer and then I had to run it through Dr. Divx to bring it down to a resolution that would play well on my mobile device. Will this automated transcoding process increase the time it takes to put it on the handheld even more?

    I have mentioned before that I use the "Record to VCR" option to put shows on my mobile device as I have an Archos that will automatically record it in the best fit option if I so choose... Yeah, it's real time and it's a pain but it was actually faster and easier than using Tivo2Go. Being that I've moved to the DirecTivo I no longer have the Tivo2Go option (with a stock unit) so I am happy to use Record to VCR for now.
    • Will this automated transcoding process increase the time it takes to put it on the handheld even more?

      I don't remember if it was mentioned in one of those articles, or if it was a different one, but somewhere it said that conversion is realtime, with about another 10 mins to transfer to the iPod/PSP. It really does sound like the slowest part of the process is getting the data onto your machine from the TiVo (although, if the transcoding is able to keep up with that, then the point is fairly moot anyway
    • Well, you can't really blame Tivo if wireless networking is slow. They have slowly been adding G support, but the problem is, all of the wireless G devices that keep on changing chipsets (quielty). Also, remember with wireless, (B for example) which is 11MBps, its a shared 11MBps, so if you are transfering to a machine also on wireless, you are instantly down to 5.5MBps. Using wired ethernet, its better than real-time for medium quality video. Keep in mind, it is already doing some level of transcoding w
      • No, I can't blame Tivo for the wireless speeds but it still surprises me that 50% of Tivo users are utilizing this particular transfer method.

        Keep in mind, it is already doing some level of transcoding when transfering clips from Tivo computer, so it makes sense that transfers to iPod would not be too much worse.

        I'm sure that it won't be much worse but with the transfers already being greater than real-time any additional time spent sucks :(
      • I thought the USB ports on TiVos were only USB 1.1? G support is kinda moot (except for keeping your network out of mixed mode) when you're limited to USB speeds.

        Yes, I have used TiVo2Go several times in the past and the transfer times are seriously painful. You basically have to plan a day in advance if you want to load shows on something. Still, it works pretty nicely after that and the quality is pretty good.

        The crux of the matter is that TiVo2Go gave people something they've been wanting for a lo
      • I use my Tivo through a wired network, and it's painfully slow. It's easier to just do it real time through the record to VCR, and not deal with the Tivo software.

    • Re:It's surprising to me too! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Malc ( 1751 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @11:28AM (#14082290)
      Transfers from Tivos seem to be slow whatever you use. I have a series 1 Tivo with mfs_ftp installed on it. I transfer over 100BaseT. The harddrive is a year old 72000 RPM drive, so it's not slow. Downloading from the Tivo I see about 1 Mbs. Uploading shows back to the Tivo I see 140-150 Kbs. It takes me 5-6 hours to put an hour show back on to the Tivo! So I think the problem lies somewhere within the Tivo, and not with the transfer software (be it mfs_ftp or Tivo2Go).
      • This experience is not typical... many people see avg download speeds around 2MB/s, and upload speeds around 1MB/s. There are many people whose tivos perform as poorly as yours does, though... not sure what the reason is behind the variance.

        • Over wireless, my speeds aren't stellar, but they're not too bad. They are large files. I've had slightly better luck not using the Tivo desktop app:
          Link [brettsinger.net]
          This is on a Series 2.

          Transcoding will take time too, but the fact that Tivo is finally opening up to more devices (that is, not just laptops and Portable Windows Media Center toys) is a good thing. Save to VCR sucks - the quality degrades, it's only real time, and, at least on my Tivo, you can't do watch anything else while it records.
          If Tivo doesn't
      • "72000 RPM drive"

        Wow. Really? You've got a blast shield around that thing, right?

  • TV Shows on iPod (Score:4, Funny)

    by ccZaphod ( 672824 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:17AM (#14081655)
    I've been carrying shows around on my iPod for years. I've got a dozen episodes of Farscape sitting on it right now. I watch shows from my iPod on my Laptop when I'm on the road. I have not bought a Video iPod yet and think I'd prefer to watch on a big laptop screen anyway.

  • Mac Support (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JonahLee ( 158787 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:18AM (#14081661)
    Too bad they never added Tivo To Go For Macintosh, and I doubt they will ever add this feature to Macs either. Nice to be a second or even 3rd class citizen when it comes to Tivo because i own a mac.
    • Too bad they never added Tivo To Go For Macintosh, and I doubt they will ever add this feature to Macs either. Nice to be a second or even 3rd class citizen when it comes to Tivo because i own a mac.

      Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. :)
    • "Too bad they never added Tivo To Go For Macintosh, and I doubt they will ever add this feature to Macs either. Nice to be a second or even 3rd class citizen when it comes to Tivo because i own a mac."

      Don't give up yet. Word on the street is that they'll be enabling Mac support sometime in Q1 2006.

      If it really bugs you, then go to BestBuy on BlackFriday and pick up their $150 eMachines package (computer, monitor, printer) and then you can have a dedicated cheapie PC to take advantage of TiVo-2-Go. Hey, it

    • Straight from the TiVo press release [tivo.com]:

      "TiVo said it will begin testing the feature in the coming weeks with a select group of TiVo Series2(TM) 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."

      The word entire would presumably include Mac users. Of course, this could be a typo, but at least there's some hope.

    • I still wonder if Apple will add Tivo like functions to the mini.
      All it would take is a tuner card and remote...
      Latest rumor... Apple buys Nintendo and adds tuner card to the Mini :).
      Apple in a one move adds a large library of games to the mini and makes it the media center of the future. iTunes puts Blockbuster out of business overnight.

    • Re:Mac Support (Score:4, Informative)

      by futurekill ( 745161 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @03:44PM (#14084742)
      You don't need Tivo2Go to download shows from your Series 2 Tivo, you don't event need to mod it....if you go to 'https://tivo:@/nowplaying/index.html' you can download all the shows on your Tivo...Unfortunately, they come down as .tivo files. These files are basically mpegs with an annoying wrapper around them. I use a program (via Virtual PC :-( ) called "Direct Show Filter Dump" [prish.com] to scrape the wrapper off and leave with with an mpeg. It works pretty well, but still requires access to a PeeCee, well, sort of... If anyone knows of a utility to scrape this off in the Mac natively, give a shout. I've tried ffMpeg [slashdot.org] without any luck, although it is still a very useful program.

  • Mac software? (Score:5, Informative)

    by toupsie ( 88295 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:18AM (#14081662) Homepage
    The sad part is that Apple Mac users will not be able to transcode the Tivo files for Apple iPods because of Windows DRM. I keep around an old Windows notebook just to covert Tivo files to AVIs so I can store them on my Mac Mini hooked to my HDTV. What a hassle. Tivo refuses to support Mac users and release a Tiger compatible version of their software [versiontracker.com]. Tivo is supposed to make my life easier by conforming TV to my schedule not to Hollywood's whim. Once my two Tivos die, I will never, ever give money to that stupid TV with legs and arms.

    FU Tivo.

    • Yeah, iPod support EXCEPT for Mac users. What a joke and an insult.

    • Re:Mac software? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BushCheney08 ( 917605 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:32AM (#14081777)
      Since the files will be converted to mp4 files, they should be playable on a Mac. Let's hope that they'll spend the next few months before rollout working on a Mac compatible version of TiVo Desktop so that you can actually do the conversion on one, too.
    • The chances this will be supported on DirecTivo....bwaaahahahhaaaaahahahaha 0

    • Re:Mac software? (Score:1, Redundant)

      by NardofDoom ( 821951 )
      Build a MythTV system. Seriously. I've never done it, but a friend of mine, who's got a lot fewer skills than me, had one up and running in less than three hours, for under $400.
    • The really funny thing is the TiVo desktop does in fact work on the current version of OS X. I use it to stream music to my receiver from iTunes on my Powerbook all the time. What doesn't work is TiVoToGo. I agree it's inconvenient, but I transfer video to my Windoze box and convert the format before archiving. I still love my TiVos, as their value is in time shifting TV content for me. Archiving shows and making DVDs of things I can't buy are added bonuses for me.
    • It's unfortunate, but Macs are very much a niche that's not always worth supporting. Much of the reason that Macs are supported despite having 1/20th of the potential market is that it's easier to program for (or seemed so when I tried, pretty cool stuff) and tech support isn't such a pain because the behind-the-scenes stuff in OS X isn't nearly as shoddy as their counterparts in Windows, especially when it comes to third-party add-ins that seem to be another source of headaches in Windows.

      Disclaimer: I u

      • Re:Mac software? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Moofie ( 22272 )
        So why were Macs supported, and then they stopped?

        If Tivo doesn't want my business, that's just fine. They just need to state that clearly.
  • Is the Tivo program it self going to shrink the file down to be able to handle more then 1 episode of a show on the ipod? I can just see how the resoultion and filesize not working on it well.

  • Huh. (Score:2, Informative)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 )
    Seeing as TiVo hasn't even bothered to make TiVo Desktop compatible with Tiger yet, I'll take this report with a grain of salt.

  • How long until (Score:3, Informative)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:33AM (#14081783)
    We get a news story about a group of mysterious stormtroopers breaking into the Tivo headquarters and slaughtering its executive board.

    I mean, didn't the MPAA just force them to allow remove-deletion of content at will? I can't imagine that promoting copying of saved tv shows will sit well with the cartels.

  • iPod and 'The Innovators Dilemma' (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rewinn ( 647614 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:34AM (#14081785) Homepage

    iPod seems to be turning into the canonical example of attacking an industry leader from below, as detailed in Clayton M. Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail" a decade back.

    In business computing, PCs broke the dominance of mainframes in the computing environment by introducing relatively cheap gadgets that were more expensive and less profitable per business function than the industry leaders, who quite logically ignored them; and then PCs crept up the functionality curve to wipe out the dinosaurs.

    In autos, the Japanese starting importing cheap cars to the US that were less profitable that our domestic industry leaders, who quite logically failed to respond effectively. While GM etc always made cheap cars too, they didn't try to match Japan's cheap-and-good model; Toyota etc crept up the functionality curve nearly to wipe out the dinosaurs.

    Now in computing: the iPod, started cheap, and is creeping up the functionality curve.

    The question is, will the industry leaders recognize and respond effectively? Or rather, can they? I don't intend to be making a yet another cheap flame of the world's leading software company, which cannot be ignorant of the what's going on, but responding may require breaking their business model.

    • "The question is, will the industry leaders recognize and respond effectively? Or rather, can they? I don't intend to be making a yet another cheap flame of the world's leading software company, which cannot be ignorant of the what's going on, but responding may require breaking their business model."

      Okay, but who are you referring to as the industry dinosaurs for your scenario, the MPAA studios or TiVo and the other DVR manufacturers? Or both, with the iPod serving as their executioner?

      • >Okay, but who are you referring to as the industry dinosaurs for your scenario, the MPAA studios or TiVo and the other DVR manufacturers?

        Wintel.

        The iPod is a cheap computer, with limited functionality compared to your desktop or your laptop. Its only advantages are its customer-pleasing price, its focus on functions customers want, and its ability to creep up to desktop functionality ... when it wants to.

        • "The iPod is a cheap computer, with limited functionality compared to your desktop or your laptop. Its only advantages are its customer-pleasing price, its focus on functions customers want, and its ability to creep up to desktop functionality ... when it wants to."

          I dunno about that one. The iPod would need a better processor (an Intel ARM based processor) for starts as well as a better OS to go along with it to get better media features standard. It has been reported in the past that Apple engineers are

          • >The iPod would need a better processor (an Intel ARM based processor) for starts as well as a better OS

            I'm sure your facts are correct, but the same was truthfully said of PCs in the early days and other "Innovator's-Dilemma"-class dinosaur slayers.

            The "Death From Below" strategy starts with cheap, weak stuff that it's not profitable or otherwise rational for the dinos to resist. The significant difference today is that MS is headed by the most successful businessman in history; is he willing to br

    • The first iPod was $399. This invited many guffaws from MD owners/manufacturers, CD Walkman owners, and memory-based mp3 owners/manufacturers, even current mp3 jukebox (HD) owners.

      I do agree Apple is distrupting Sony quite a bit. But they aren't exactly attacking the market as a whole from below. In fact, they really pushed new bounds as to how much you could charge for a music player.
  • I just don't see this flying. DRM and real-time encoding?? So you're limited in what you can do with the file AND it takes 2 hours to convert a 2 hour show and then however long to synch it with the device...

    The people who really want to watch movies on their iPods and PSP will either have already created their own (DRM-free) hacks or will have bought the movie on a UMD. The people who only casually thinks, gee, it might be nice to have a copy this week's episode of "Stacked" on my iPod won't want to wai

  • Trying vs. Overly-Restrictive DRM (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sagenumen ( 62467 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:46AM (#14081883)
    "...will include digital watermarks to try to cut down on piracy. "

    That's what I like to hear. Honestly, they'll never eliminate it because there will be the people that just won't pay, but if there was a distribution system (that offered better than 128kbps), was reasonably priced, and offered less restrictive DRM, the general public would have little incentive to pirate. The only things keeping me from buying legal tracks are the DRM and the bitrate. I don't even mind the dollar a song because I'm not getting filler tracks that I would get on a CD.

    Anyway...I'm rambling...
    • What exactly will happen?

      1. User rips TV episode from TiVo
      2. User distributes TV episode using BitTorrent
      3. TiVo Inc. downloads TV episode
      4. TiVo Inc. decodes watermark, identifies subscriber who ripped it

      And then what? In my opinion they ought to do nothing (and Profit!) but I suspect their user agreement stipulates that the user's TiVo should be deactivated. With TiVo already in hot water among users for various non-consumer-friendly things (DRM on TiVoToGo, ads, more ads, content protection, billboard
  • TiVo's announcement comes as it faces stiffer competition from computer companies, cell phone providers and television networks that are scrambling to beam TV shows into any handheld device with a screen capable of playing video.

    This is great news and I don't mean to be a troll but isn't it a bit disturbing that companies seem more focused on systems that promote vendor-lockin by controlling content?

    Television is bascially a one-way pipe to a dumb terminal. I'd much rather see companies working toward
    • The funny thing is that television got to be a one-way pipe to a dumb terminal precisely when it was the most monopolistic. The US government adopted TV standards, and sold (for a pittance) the rights to spectrum that has become increasingly valuable over the years. The terminal is dumb only because a standard was imposed; otherwise, the network affiliates could all have chosen different standards to try to lock you in to watching a particular network. Or you could buy a smarter box to read them all.

      Now

  • Giveth, and taketh away (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @10:50AM (#14081919)
    So TiVo will let us transfer shows to our iPods. This is the same TiVo that already makes their DVRs will obey the Broadcast Flag despite no federal legislation ever mandating such compliance. Seems to me that Disney, the WB, and every other studio will simply flag all their broadcasts as Do Not Record, blocking such free attempts to provide content to one's iPod and PSP and requiring these shows to be purchased. Therefore this announcement therefore amounts to NOTHING!
    • "So TiVo will let us transfer shows to our iPods. This is the same TiVo that already makes their DVRs will obey the Broadcast Flag despite no federal legislation ever mandating such compliance. Seems to me that Disney, the WB, and every other studio will simply flag all their broadcasts as Do Not Record, blocking such free attempts to provide content to one's iPod and PSP and requiring these shows to be purchased. Therefore this announcement therefore amounts to NOTHING!"

      Hollywood is still trying to hoist t

  • Replay TV (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is pretty easy to do on my Replay TV. I have put a quite a few shows on my ipod video already. Keeps the wife busy on long car trips.
    Dvarchive to grab the shows from the Replay TV and then use one of the many free converters to change the format to IPOD friendly.

  • really? (Score:2, Funny)

    by runner91786 ( 880393 )
    Great, so now i guess Tivo will make me connect my iPod to the phone line to receive "service updates" also?!?

  • It will be OS X compatible (at least somewhat) (Score:5, Informative)

    by macslut ( 724441 ) on Monday November 21, 2005 @11:12AM (#14082108)
    It makes sense that they would support OS X. The old TiVoToGo relied on Windows Media DRM which was unavailable on the Mac. The tech to make this new watermarking method available on OS X would be trivial. The files themselves *must* be compatible with the Mac if they are to play on the iPod. There's no way TiVo is getting around that.

    Also TiVo Desktop *is* compatible with OS X 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 (I've heard but not confirmed 10.4.4 as well). There was an incompatibility with 10.4.0 and 10.4.1, but the later releases of Tiger worked well. The installer gives a false "failed" message, but it does install and it does work very well (better than 10.3.x).

    It should also be noted that the CEO of TiVo is a Mac user. They very much wanted to provide Mac support for TiVoToGo, but didn't want to take the legal risk of allowing shows to be transferred without any DRM. Considering Apple won't license their DRM and Windows Media DRM isn't compatible with the Mac, TiVo had little choice but to release for Windows only and/or develop their own DRM method. It looks like the success of the iPod has convinced TiVo that it was worth developing a watermark method that would make the files compatible with the iPod, and as result, the files must be compatible with the Mac.

    The only question remains is whether TiVo will provide Mac software that *pulls* (or pushes) the files from the TiVo to the Mac. If they don't, there are plenty of ways of getting around it, but I can't imagine TiVo wouldn't dedicate the couple of hours to develop this software on the Mac.
    • Just because it will play on a iPod doesn't mean ~everything about it~ will play nicely with a Mac.

      The old TiVo Desktop software that was available for the Mac never supported video.

      Pulling video off the TiVo is trivial. The box runs an HTTP server. But it serves already-DRM'd ".tivo" files.

      I don't know of any decoder available on the Mac to decode that video format. So, you might still need a PC to recode the video from a ".tivo" file to some other DRM'd format before you can play it on a Mac.

      In any case,

    • Also TiVo Desktop *is* compatible with OS X 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 (I've heard but not confirmed 10.4.4 as well). There was an incompatibility with 10.4.0 and 10.4.1, but the later releases of Tiger worked well. The installer gives a false "failed" message, but it does install and it does work very well (better than 10.3.x).

      Mac OS X v10.2 - v10.3.x
      (Not compatible with Mac OS X 10.4: Tiger)
      - Tivo Desktop Download Page [tivo.com]

      Perhaps you're correct that you can get it to work on 10.4, but as the download page

  • 1. Transfers take forever, regardless of wired or wireless connection.
    2. No Mac support.
    3. Tivo is notoriously hideous on hitting their timelines. They annouced TivoToGo at CES 2004 and only released it a little before CES 2005 to limited beta testers (the full official unveiling of TTG was after CES 05).
    • 4. It isn't supported on the new iPod Micro, but that's probably because it's obsolete
      • "4. It isn't supported on the new iPod Micro, but that's probably because it's obsolete"

        Was that a SNL "Weekend Update" reference to the Steve Jobs skit this last Saturday? If so, you should've referenced the micro invisible iPod that also floats.

  • A simpler alternative (Score:2, Informative)

    by Trebonius ( 29177 ) *
    Another device that'll record to PSP video is the Neuros Recorder2 [neurosaudio.com].

    It doesn't have the wide array of Tivolike features, but if you just want to convert analog video to digital for your PSP, this should work well.
  • I purchased a series2 Tivo three years ago and it has served me well, but when is Tivo going to finally release an HD capable standalone box? Three years is a lifetime for a struggling company not to release a major product update.
  • What features would you really like to see in TiVo?
    TiVo has seriously fallen behind the technology curve and little software and marketing bandaids are not getting the job done.
    • I would like to see something more than the heavily underpowerd processor currently in it.

      An interface that doesn't clutter up your already low-res TV.

      Boot-up time of less than 5 minutes.

      Thing I like the least about my TiVo S2 is how absolutely PATHETIC the system performance is. I've had the system come to a near hault to the point where it would show about 1 frame per second on the TV, if I had been transfering shows to my PC over night. Only way to fix the problem is to reboot the system, which takes a
  • I've been holding off on getting TiVo - never really saw the need, since my TV viewing time is limited as it is and between, SciFi, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, HBO and ESPN there's almost always something I *want* to watch on when I do have time.

    But I just got an iPod video, and now the thought of TiVo-ing Adult Swim to my iPod video for watching while I commute to/from work is just *too* tempting :-).
    • now the thought of TiVo-ing Adult Swim to my iPod video for watching while I commute to/from work is just *too* tempting

      Consider ReplayTV [replayfaqs.com], with built-in ethernet. It's got a Java-based platform-neutral controller called DVArchive [google.com], and it produces MPGs suitable for transcoding to iPod [avsforum.com] or PSP [avsforum.com] with no DRM attached. Oh, and you can share and download thousands of shows from other ReplayTV owners using Poopli [avsforum.com].
  • Nice to see Tivo do something smart, for a change. This company has disrespected and disowned the Mac platform since Tiger came out. A *one line* fix for the Tivo Desktop software is all they needed to release for final Tiger compatibility. As of today, that broken version [tivo.com] is still on their web page. It also doesn't include aac audio support; a minor thing on other platforms, but a snub to the Mac users who have large aac collections. That version also lacks significant functionality that it's Windows count
  • Crap, now that's a stupid name. Or should I say, StUpId NaMe.
  • Okay, I know DirecTV refuses to support *any* of the networking functions on DirecTiVo units; I have a Linksys WUSB54G [linksys.com] plugged in to the USB port on my Philips DSR704R17, but it's not recognized. What do I need to do to enable all these nifty features on my DirecTiVo unit?

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