TiVo this morning took the wraps off its new fifth-generation DVR boxes, collectively known as the TiVo Roamio family. As the prominent "roam" in the name implies, TiVo's emphasis with the new line is on mobility. Customers will be able to view their recorded TV shows away from the TiVo boxes doing the recording—and not just in their homes, either.

Roamio brings a number of changes from previous-generation TiVo boxes, but the one TiVo is making the most noise about is the new platform's built-in ability to transcode recordings and stream them to iOS devices. At launch, streaming only works within your LAN, but before the end of the year TiVo will push an update to the Roamio boxes which will enable them to push recordings over the Internet to your connected (iOS) devices. The Internet streaming is adaptive, pacing itself to the available upload bandwidth of your home connection. It can throttle as low as 180kbps all the way up to 2Mbps.

The Roamio line also includes more tuners and more recording time. The top-end Roamio Pro can record six shows simultaneously while storing up to 450 hours of HD programming on its 3TB of storage. The mid-range Roamio Plus records six simultaneous shows and can store 150 hours; the entry-level Roamio can record four shows and keep 75 hours.

Building on its desire to be not just a DVR but rather a whole-home media device, the Roamio TiVos can also dynamically allocate their tuners to TiVo's Mini DVR extenders. Rather than permanently eating up a whole tuner, Roamio's software now allows attached DVR extenders to only use a tuner when they're actively watching live TV.

TiVo is promising improved performance over their fourth-generation DVRs. Responsiveness is often an issue with DVRs, especially OEM models from cable or satellite providers, and a snappy responsive user interface is one potential way that TiVo hopes to differentiate itself from the DVR pack. No small part of the extra performance comes from the newer guts required for all the transcoding, but the TiVo software has gone through some substantial overhauls as well. TiVo also says that within a few months, the Roamio line will have access to a TiVo app store, which will let users add additional capabilities onto the DVR via HTML5 applications. The ability to search and filter through your own recorded shows as well as through upcoming programming has been significantly updated, and the Roamio will do its best to present you with a tremendous amount of stuff to watch. TiVo's signature feature is still around too—the suggestion of content to record based on your indicated preferences has been updated and now extends to Internet sources like Netflix and Hulu.

For now, TiVo Roamio is compatible with cable TV service and Verizon's FiOS TV service; satellite TV, and AT&T's U-Verse are not supported (over-the-air is supported only in the entry-level Roamio model—the Pro and Plus require cable). Roamio uses CableCARD to integrate with existing cable service, and some cable providers (like Comcast) will even allow the Roamio to receive their video-on-demand content as well. It integrates with your LAN via Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet and connects to your TV or receiver over HDMI or composite.

The three Roamio models are available for sale as of today direct from TiVo, and they will appear at Amazon.com and Best Buy over the next few weeks. The entry-level Roamio costs $199.99, the Roamio Plus is $399.99, and the Roamio Pro is $599.99.