February 24, 2004
Tell TiVo if You Want Your TV Content to Be Portable
TiVo is doing a research survey about a proposed "TiVoToGo" idea. Fill out the survey and let them know what you think about their idea.
One idea: Consider suggesting that they let you convert your TiVo content into portable formats (e.g. MPEG-4) so you can take it with you on your handheld device.
Posted by Craig | Permalink | TrackBackI would love to be able to take shows I TIVOed with me on my Pocket PC.
TivoToGo sounds like a good idea, but it should be offered for free if you buy the home entertainment option.
Posted by Scott Peterson at February 24, 2004 12:00 PMI wonder how the size of tivo format videos compares to ntsc quality mpeg-4?
Posted by Bob at February 24, 2004 02:23 PMIn its most compressed quality, one hour of video = about 1 GB of space. At Best quality, 9 hours of video = about 30 GB, so you do the math. :-)
Posted by Craig at February 24, 2004 03:56 PMYou have to understand that Tivo will be trying to keep the content providers happy, so anything that allows you to completely violate copyright--i.e. make a copy which you can make any number of copies of, send over the internet, etc, will be unlikely to be supported. I'm not sure what the encrypted/copy control aspects of MPEG-4 are and whether they're standardized or not. If not, seems unlikely that Tivo will support them. Yes I would rather they just allowed me to export in a standard uncontrolled format too.
Posted by Glenn at March 1, 2004 08:45 PMI don't see how converting to MPEG-4 is any different than burning/saving to DVD -- either way, you have an unprotected copy of content recorded from TV. Going from DVD to MPEG-4, then, is a triviality.
Posted by Craig at March 1, 2004 08:58 PMTo leave a comment or read updated entries, please visit GearBits' current site. Thanks.