• by Paul Gough , January 9, 2004

You can have TiVoToGo, but you won't be able to send it anywhere you want.

TiVo made its usual splash at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, announcing new deals with manufacturers, enhancements to its home-networking option and one of the most intriguing features since the original digital video recorder.

While pricing hasn't been determined yet, TiVo owners who are subscribed to the home media option will be able to transfer TiVo-recorded programs to another computer or burn them onto DVDs. So no more worrying about whether you have enough room on your unit's hard drive or deciding whether to chuck something to TiVo that next episode of "Ed." And, if you want to take last night's "Friends" with you to watch on the train - personally, I wouldn't know why you would, but to each their own - you can do that, too.

Or perhaps Michael Ramsay put it best: "The coolness factor of this is off the charts."

But there are going to be safeties to prevent the Napsterization of video, which former TiVo competitor flirted with when ReplayTV 4000 was introduced in 2001. That version of Replay TV took video peer-to-peer file sharing to a new level, allowing users to send copies of programs to others. Needless to say, that didn't go over well with content providers.

You won't be able to do that in TiVoToGo, which uses Sonic Solutions' DVD creation software MyDVD and CinePlayer. To keep unauthorized eyes from viewing the content, there'll be what it calls a Content Security Key to unlock the files and prevent files from being shared online.

Expect this innovation in the fall of 2004, TiVo says.

-- Paul J. Gough