TiVo Announces PSP Subscription Service

Popular digital video recorder firm TiVo has announced that it will start testing a feature to allow North American subscribers to watch previously recorded TV shows on Sony's PSP handheld, as well as on the video-enabled versions of Apple's iPod. The firm has not yet confirmed a public release date for the feature, but has indicated that it hopes to make the service available to stand-alone TiVo Series 2 owners some time in early 2006. The company also commented that it will employ watermarking on transferred files so their origin can be tracked for piracy reasons - this service is a new extension of the TiVo ToGo service. "The increasing popularity of mobile devices for viewing video such as Apple's iPod and the PSP device demonstrate the enormous consumer demand for entertainment on the go," TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said in a statement. A number of third-party websites have recently been making promotional and free content available in PSP-compatible MPEG4 movie formats, showing the apparent popularity of the PSP's movie-playing capabilities. Thanks to the announcement, TiVo shares jumped around 6% to $5.61 in pre-market trading, as the potential popularity of the feature was rated favorably by the market.