Consumer Electronics Show 2004 Day 3 - And now, the rest of the story

TiVo

For those out there who want to record in high definition en mass, the new HD Direct TiVo sports four tuners (two of which are HD). Any two of the tuners can be recording at the same time.

Of course, what would a showing at CES be without network connectivity and a little slice of convergence? With the Home Media Option, users will be able to connect their TiVo to their home network and upload their recorded shows to their computer using the forthcoming TiVoToGo service.

Sonic Solutions authors the software which plays the proprietary TiVo format, and as an added security measure, a USB dongle specifically tied to your TiVo unit (users may have a maximum of ten) is required to initiate playback of the video. This means that no one else can play your recordings without your dongle, and helps TiVo sidestep any copyright issues they may have had. The TiVo staff did indicate that these videos are transferable to DVD-Rs and CD-Rs for viewing on standalone dvd players.

With this newly available connectivity, we will also be able to stream audio, video and images from our home network to the TiVo. This way, TiVo can be used as an all in one media center for digital content.

In the future, we can also expect to be able to control our TiVos with our cell phones as well. Its going to be a good year for the DVR.