TILTS: Portable TiVo for your car
You're probably growing tired of me telling you how wonderful TiVo is but I have actually come up with an improvement to TiVo that would make it even better.
Today's Technology I'd Like to See (TILTS) is portable TiVo. Yes, I know you can already transfer your TiVo shows to portable video devices such as your laptop or an iPod Touch but I'm talking about simpler portability.
What if there was a drive bay on your TiVo that housed a portable hard drive with all of your recorded and downloaded shows? Whenever you leave the house you could just pull the drive out of the drive bay and take all of your shows with you. I envision this portable drive having video and audio connectors that would allow you to send the signal to any other device you hook it up to (such as the drop-down video screens available in most mini-vans).
Self-contained portable TiVo?
Better yet, what if the portable drive had a flip out video screen and navigation buttons such that the portable drive itself served as a self-contained video player? Watching your own TiVo shows on an airplane or while waiting for your car's oil change? Now that would be cool!
Of course there would be some obstacles to overcome such as how your base TiVo unit would record shows when the portable drive isn't docked in the drive bay but I'm sure the fine folks over at TiVo could figure this one out.
Disclaimer: Technologies presented in the Technology I'd Like To See (TILTS) series are based on my original (and sometimes delirious) thoughts. I present them here to the public only because I can not afford to implement any of them myself. If you steal borrow one of my ideas and end up filthy rich because of it, please remember where you got the idea and throw a little love my way. Something like a BMW or a big fat check would do just fine.
6 comments for this blog post so far...
September 09, 2009 at 7:58 am
ahow628
Patric,
Your dream does exist, but would require some expense and legwork. What you need is a Slingbox. You can then watch TV (and I think DVR) from your house on your phone screen. I don’t think Slingbox for the iPhone works with 3G, only WiFi, but you might be able to swing it with your other phone depending on if they have a client for it.
I’ve never used Sling so I don’t know what features it offers or anything, but I know people are completely obsessed when they get it.
Andy
September 09, 2009 at 10:34 am
Patric Welch
@ahow628 - I actually have a Slingbox and it’s every bit as good as people say it is. However, it still does not provide the portability I want. I want to be able to physically plug something into my minivan’s drop-down DVD screen. Slingbox still requires some other device with an Internet connection. I don’t want to stream anything. I want to have the shows physically stored on the playback device.
That being said, if AT&T;ever allows the Sling player for the iPhone to go over the 3G network, I’ll buy the Sling player app that day.
September 09, 2009 at 7:06 pm
ahow628
If I had a dollar for every time a piece of technology did everything but what I need it to do, I’d be retired to an island in the Caribbean.
Have you checked out the Archos Media Tablets with the DVR station. It isn’t exactly straight from your Tivo, but it is closer.
http://www.archos.com/products/imt/archos_5/accessories.html?country=us&lang=en&p=dvrstation
September 09, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Patric Welch
@ahow628 - When you get to that island, I hope you’ll invite me down for a pina colada :)
September 12, 2009 at 9:22 am
Erik Deckers
Patric,
What about the ability to just plug a USB drive into your Tivo box to copy the programs, and then plug them into another player, like a laptop or car media player, and watch it straight from the USB drive?
I’d rather do something like this so there’s not one more box to lug around. If I knew I was going to be on an airplane, I’d make sure I copied programs to my laptop, rather than cart a portable player in addition to all my other technology.
September 14, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Patric Welch
@Erik - The problem with a USB drive is the transfer time. If I’m on my way out the door I don’t want to have to wait for shows to transfer to a USB drive.
Now, if they could stream my TiVo to my iPhone… Slingbox is so close....
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