The Associated Press (via MSNBC)

SAN JOSE, Calif. - TiVo Inc. pioneered digital video recording as a new way of watching television � when you want it. Now it could be TV where you want it, too.

The long-awaited service feature called TiVoToGo, set to launch Monday, will give users their first taste of TiVo untethered.

Very cool stuff. This is something TiVo owners have wanted for a very long time.

It seems to me that TiVo really ‘gets it’ when it comes to helping people make the most of their TV. Of course, they are the most successful pioneers of the concept so they should be the best at it, but one can’t help but feel that there is more to it than that. I mean, it would have been easy for TiVo to say “well, we’ll let you record shows to HD, and that’s that.” But they went further, by bringing in recommendations, season passes, the Home Media Option and now the ability to take your shows to other places via your computer.

Of course, Microsoft has its own solution using the PC and their Windows OS as the centerpiece of their attempt to bully their way into this space. But Microsoft is approaching this, like it does most things, in the context of a computer software company (which, of course, it is.) TiVo, on the other hand, does these things in the context of a consumer electronics company, and the simplicity and reliability of its products are a direct result of this thinking. They understand that no-one wants to wait ten minutes for their TiVo to boot up when they’ve got a show to watch. They understand that no-one wants to fiddle with Hard-Disk partitions, file managers or media players when there’s a game on. Despite the fact that Microsoft are the true pioneers of Digital Video Recording (with their DishPlayer product, used on Dish Network), Microsoft doesn’t understand this.

And neither do the cable companies who are trying to replicate TiVo’s products running on their own platforms. DVR functionality on most cable boxes is clunky and lacks coordination. Scheduling shows for recording on a cable box is often considered an afterthought, whereas on TiVo, recording and scheduling are at the center of everything TiVo does, and most of it is invisible to the user. All the user knows is that somehow, magically, all of their favorite shows are waiting for them when they get home.

And that’s a beautiful thing. But it’s even more beautiful now that the user can move those shows onto a PC (and burn DVDs from them).