I’ll have that To Go

Tivo upgraded my DVR last week with a new feature called TivoToGo. It allows you to transfer shows recorded on any networked Tivo box to any computer. You can also record these shows to a DVD to watch anywhere. Until now I was able to send programs from one Tivo to another in our house. Now I’m able to send it to my computer and then burn a DVD.

While the concept is cool, the process is a bit cumbersome. Even with a fast network connection, the transfer takes a long time. Also, the Tivo desktop software needs to run on your computer and has several processes running in the background taking up valuable resources. I don’t know about you but I’ve made it my mission to eliminate any items running in the system tray that take up memory.

For practice I transferred a few of Pam’s cooking shows to the computer. The new Tivo desktop lists the available shows, you select what you want and they are copied over in the background. I think TivoToGo will come in handy once in a while to archive shows we want to save. I just wish it moved faster.

I read the other day the Comcast DVR allegedly prevented people from fast-forwarded past commercials during American Idol and 24 last week. This is very bad. The main reason I have Tivo is to skip over the commercials. If they start blocking this feature, I’ll stop watching the shows.