TiVo Unveils New Products, Predicts Robust 2004

[Gregg Lengling]

Television recording technology company TiVo (news - web sites) Inc. on Thursday unveiled new products and services, including a method for shifting saved programs to a home computer, to help continue growth of its video recording service.

   

"As a company, we expect TiVo's expanded presence in the market to lead to a robust 2004," said Chief Executive Mike Ramsay.


The San Jose, California-based company, whose service enables users to pause and replay live TV, said new products featuring it include DVD recorders manufactured by consumer electronics makers Humax and Toshiba; a high-definition DVRs for satellite TV users; and home networking products.


TiVo also unveiled TiVo-to-Go, which lets users who also subscribe to an additional TiVo home networking service to transfer shows they have recorded on the set-top box to a home computer. The system is kept secure by a unique key-sized memory device that must be plugged into the computer when the recorded content is watched or copied.


TiVo late in 2003 said it had reached one million users -- who each pay a monthly fee. The growth was driven in part by healthy demand from customers who also subscribe to the DirecTV satellite broadcast system, which is a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.


TiVo has tried to cool Wall Street analysts' worries that Murdoch will in time turn away from TiVo and, perhaps, pick another partner to develop DVRs. On Thursday, Ramsay said the relationship with DirecTV continues to be strong as shown by the new High-Definition product.


"We have a pipeline of development that will take us well into next year," he said. "Despite all of the 'hoopla' and speculation... I'm pretty focused on us being a strategic supplier to them for the foreseeable future."