TiVoToGo Finally Arrives and Nobody Cares
You already know which of your friends own a Tivo because once someone buys one all they can do is talk about it. Even worse, if you do own one you start seeking out other Tivo owners so that you can compare what whacky selection your personal livingroom assistant has proffered for your perusal.
Tivo owners have been hanging by a thread for nearly a year to get that TivoToGo feature activated. In a nutshell: it allows you to transfer saved shows from your Tivo to a Windows PC. Ostensibly this would be your laptop so that you can catch up on the latest episode of the Sopranos while you commute on the train (clearly none of Tivo’s execs lives in LA).
Tivo is just a geeky Linux computer that lurks in your den in disguise. At its core is a bare-bones computer that records TV programs onto a computer hard drive as a digital file. Transferring that file to another computer isn’t really a challenge at all. In fact if you’ve ever joined the discussions on one of the many Tivo hacking sites you would know that your favorite neighborhood pirates have been, in fact, doing this for years. So why did it take so long to have this “feature” come along?
Note: Not all shows may be eligible for transfer from your TiVo box to your computer. Programming providers may restrict or limit the ability to record, display, view or transfer any particular program using a variety of copy protection mechanisms.
That’s right. Tivo allows random people wearing suits sitting in offices to decide what you can or cannot put onto your computer. That may not seem so bad until you realize that they can change their minds at any time and there is nothing you can do about it. If you buy a DVD from me you expect to be able to watch it whenever you want. What if a couple weeks later I decide to send a signal to your DVD player that I’ve changed my mind and you shouldn’t be able to watch that DVD anymore?
Well, this is basically what is starting to happen. This is also why the release of this new “feature” was met with so little interest. Anyone who really wants to watch Tivo files on their computer already knows how to do it anyways.
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