Your TV: anywhere, anytime

Updated January 31, 2006

Back in the 1970s, the first VCRs introduced a radical notion to the home marketplace: the ability to record your favorite TV shows, even when you weren't at home, and view them at a more convenient time. It took another quarter-century before ReplayTV and TiVo refined the VCR concept, subbing a hard drive for videotapes. Now a new category of products--hardware and software--lets you unshackle your viewing from the TV room, just as the iPod let you put your entire CD collection in your pocket. The place-shifting products shown here offer an assortment of options that cater to couch potatoes of varying needs. Want to watch prerecorded TV shows on your laptop? Check out the TiVo To Go service, available with nearly all new stand-alone TiVo DVRs. Have a PC hard drive full of movies? Copy them to the Archos AV420 for watching on the road. Want to watch live cable TV in the basement without paying for an extra cable box? Belkin's Pure AV RemoteTV will do the trick. Prefer to watch your TV when you're away from the house, from any broadband-connected PC? You'll want Sony's LocationFree TV (which can also beam video to your PSP), Sling Media's supercool Slingbox, or Orb's free multimedia streaming software.

More resources

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