Tricklin

This Monday (11/21), TiVo announced that consumers will now be able to download their TiVo recordings onto their video iPod. This is great news for all video iPod owners out there! Or is it?

How will it work?
Well, to get your freshly recorded episode of "America's Next Top Model" onto your iPod, you must first install the latest version of TiVoToGo onto your PC. Oh yeah, did I mention that this will only work on a PC and not a Mac? Once you've installed the latest TiVoToGo, you'll start it up from your PC, which will look for your Series2 TiVo (yes, that's right. This will only work on Series2 TiVos) on the network, find it, and produce a list of shows available for download. From here, you can select the shows you wish to download, and wait... and wait... and wait... and wait...

Don't expect instant gratification: The transfer process from a TiVo Series2 set-top-box to a PC - a necessary step before syncing to a portable - occurs roughly in real-time. An hour-long show will take an hour to transfer to the PC, then roughly another 10 minutes or so to sync to a portable device. -- Associated Press

Once you've got the show downloaded to your computer, just hook up your iPod, and upload it again, this time from your PC to your iPod. In 10 minutes, you should be ready to watch your program - on a 2.5 inch screen! Pretty sweet, eh? It'll only take 70 minutes (1hr and 10 min) to get "ANTM" onto your portable video player. In case it's difficult to see just how ridiculous this seems, I'm going to write it out: when fast forwarding through all the commercials of a 60 minute show, it should take you about 45 minutes total to watch. Not to mention, it'll be on a TV with a display that is more than likely larger than 2.5 inches.

Yes, I do understand that you can boot up your computer, hook up your iPod, set up TiVoToGo to download the programs, and then go do whatever you want. Then come back, unhook your iPod from your PC, and wait, again, to watch your shows the next morning while on your commute to work, even though your TiVo will probably still have the show saved for you to watch whenever you want.

I guess I just don't see this feature being utilized that often. Yes, it's cool at first, but once the inconvenience of it is realized, it'll stop being used, and people will go back to watching their shows on their big screen TVs whenever they have some free time.