NYT: Beginning in 2006, TiVo owners will be able to watch recorded television shows on Apple’s video iPods and on Sony’s handheld PSP game machine.
The announcement builds on TiVo’s release in February of an update to its video recorders that allows its users to transfer programs to personal computers and DVD’s, as well as to portable video players that support Microsoft’s mobile video format. When the company releases new software in the first quarter of next year, it will extend that capability to the video iPod, released last month, and the Sony PSP.
“This is another thing we can do to add value for our subscribers,” said Jim Denney, TiVo’s vice president of product marketing. “We’ve seen reasonable demand and interest from people to bring their videos with them.”
Owners of the Apple or Sony devices will need to pay TiVo to unlock the portion of the new software that converts videos to the MPEG-4 format used by those players.
