New Digital Media Partners Announced

At the Jan. 2005 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft announced several new digital media partners, including digital video-recording (DVR) pioneer TiVo, which will allow recorded programs to be transferred to PCs. However, Microsoft made few major product or technology announcements and said nothing about the successor to Xbox, raising questions as to whether its next game console will ship in 2005.

Partners Include TiVo, MTV, BellSouth

In the past few years, Microsoft has used CES to present its vision of the Windows PC as the hub of home entertainment and digital media and to announce products and technologies that fit this vision. Although Chief Software Architect Bill Gates used his 2005 CES keynote address to reiterate this vision, the company did not announce any major new technologies or products at the show. Rather, the focus was on new partners adopting or supporting existing Microsoft technologies.

Highlights included the following:

TiVo. As part of a forthcoming service called TiVoToGo, TiVo customers will be able to transfer recorded TV programs from a TiVo Series2 set-top box to a Windows XP PC. Then, they will be able to use Windows Media Player 10 to move these programs to a Portable Media Center, or to a Pocket PC or Smartphone running Windows Media Player 10 Mobile (such as the AudioVox 5600 offered through AT&T Wireless/Cingular).