TiVo to Go

From the Completely Unrelated to Politics department (and a bit of happy news to a number of Facade Friends who own TiVo DVRs--aka, digital video recorders that save TV programs to an internal hard drive for viewing any time you want to view it), an announcement that continues the move to video portability to devices other than your TV (via the NYTimes:

TiVo, the maker of digital video recorders, plans to announce a new feature on Monday that will let TiVo owners watch recorded television shows on Apple's video iPods and on Sony's handheld PSP game machine.

The announcement builds on TiVo's release in February of an update to its video recorders that allows its users to transfer programs to personal computers and DVD's, as well as to portable video players that support Microsoft's mobile video format. When the company releases new software in the first quarter of next year, it will extend that capability to the video iPod, released last month, and the Sony PSP.

IndianTelevision.com adds:

TiVo said it would begin testing the feature in the coming weeks with a select group of TiVo Series2 subscribers who own the Apple Video iPod or PSP devices. TiVo said it plans to make the feature available to its entire standalone TiVo Series2 subscriber base as early as the first quarter of next year, the release adds.

And back to the NYTimes article:

Owners of the Apple or Sony devices will need to pay TiVo to unlock the portion of the new software that converts videos to the MPEG-4 format used by those players. While TiVo has not yet set the price for the software, similar programs typically cost between $15 and $30, Mr. Denney said. The cost will cover licensing fees and other expenses associated with using the MPEG-4 format, he said.

The new TiVo software will also have a syncing feature that will allow subscribers to choose whether they want new recordings of their favorite programs transferred to their portable devices automatically via their PC.

And Engadget adds:

TiVo is promising background conversion and automatic, overnight transfer directly to your iPod or PSP via your connected PC – a two-hour process for a one-hour show. Sweet. Sure, there are a few restrictions: video-on-demand and pay-per-view content will be restricted from the service and recorded shows will be digitally watermarked allowing content to be tracked back to your living room if you get torrent happy with ‘em, dig?

Looks like I might finally have a reason to update to a TiVo Series 2, but only after I answer a few questions. First off, I don't own a video iPod and have no desire to own one, so will programming be saved on my hard drive or completely bypass it to be saved onto the device (iPod or PSP or other video-enabled media handheld)?