With the change, the company said in a statement provided to Multichannel News, it will shift resources to support “EchoStar’s unique intellectual property and advanced content-delivery technologies.” The company owns Sling Media, developer of the Slingbox device, and acquired the adaptive bit-rate technology of Move Technologies last year for $45 million.

However, EchoStar said it “remains firmly committed to supplying advanced hardware, software, and system solutions to its global cable, satellite, and telecom customers outside of the U.S. cable set top box market.”

“EchoStar recognizes that the highly demanding and competitive nature of the U.S. set-top market is very cost-competitive,” the company said. “After considerable review of the market and EchoStar’s sales/product development efforts, EchoStar has concluded the U.S. cable market offers insufficient revenue return opportunities to the company and our investors.”

That’s good news for TiVo, as Aria had the potential to be a serious competitor, especially with small-to-medium MSOs, if EchoStar was able to execute. EchoStar certainly knows how to make DVRs; something like a CableCARD version of DISH Network’s Hopper could’ve been quite a strong whole-home product. The death of Aria removes a potential competitor from the field, and really effectively leaves only ARRIS’s Moxi lineup to compete with TiVo for the small-to-medium market. The larger MSO market is dominated by traditional players like Motorola and Cisco, though TiVo has made inroads there with the likes of Charter.

In addition to the ARRIS Whole Home Solution, Buckeye is deploying the next generation ConvergeMedia video on demand (VOD) platform, and ServAssure Advanced network monitoring solution. So they’re bringing ARRIS in throughout their organization. That’s an area ARRIS has an advantage over TiVo. They can offer an end-to-end solution for small MSOs from a single vendor. This is the kind of small operator that TiVo pursues via their partnership with Evolution Digital and Clearleap. But a multi-vendor solution is rarely as clean.

See the press release for more details.

The ARRIS Whole Home Solution consists of a Moxi Gateway six-tuner DVR and Moxi Players to deliver the content to sets throughout the home. In addition to cable television the Moxi Gateway includes support for DOCSIS 3.0 data services and VOIP for telephone service, MoCA connectivity, media sharing, and an option for WiFi. The WOW! offering will have a 500GB hard drive, which doesn’t seem like a lot when you have six tuners. It will hold up to 300 hours of SD content or 75 hours of HD content.

WideOpenWest will be branding this new offering as WOW! Ultra TV. Pricing is $25/month for the gateway and two players. They even have a video introducing it:

This news comes on the heels of ARRIS announcing that they’re finally giving up on the retail market. As the Moxi website now states:“The Moxi HD DVR and Moxi Mate are no longer available for purchase.” That effectively leaves TiVo as the only advanced DVR available at retail, certainly the only retail standalone CableCARD DVR. (No, I do not consider the Channel Master TV to be in the same category.)

Since ReplayTV’s demise, Moxi has been the only real contender as a competitor for TiVo, but their history is like a Keystone Cops routine when it comes to bungled launches and incomprehensible product plans. When the finally brought a unit to retail it was basically not marketed at all and therefore only known to those who already knew to look for it, and at a fairly high price. Since ARRIS acquired Moxi it has been clear that they’ve been focused on bringing the technology to the MSO market, with little interest in retail. So it isn’t a surprise that they’re pulling out, more that it took this long.

They offer a real competitor to TiVo in the MSO market, which might be a factor in TiVo’s recent deal with Pace. Pace is a major player in the MSO market and makes integrated gateway units, similar in hardware capabilities to ARRIS’s Moxi Gateway.

Then they eventually did launch a retail DVR at the end of 2008 pretty much by surprise, with no fanfare. But it had major limitations – no OTA support & digital cable only, no analog cable. While the TiVo Premiere Elite has the same limitations, three years is a long time – three years ago most cable systems were not yet fully digital. You could get an external analog cable dongle to enable a single tuner. It was also expensive and lacked OTT services. So, unsurprisingly, it never sold well. Then in September, 2009 cable technology company Arris acquired struggling Digeo for a song ($20 million) as a way into the STB market.

Arris has continued to sell the retail Moxi unit, but it doesn’t seem to have evolved much since it launched in 2008. And what advantages it had, such as having three tuners and whole-home support with the MoxiMate, are eroding with the four tuner Elite and improved provider DVR offerings. And if TiVo launches the Preview at retail it would provide more functionality that the MoxiMate as well.

Arris has continued to struggle in the cable MSO market. They’ve retained small Oregon MSO BendBroadband as a Moxi customer. They’ve been using it since the Moxi Cable HD DVR 3012 in 2008. Charter, formerly Moxi’s biggest customer even with their limited deployment, continues to provide support for units in the field but no longer installs new units. And, of course, they’re moving to TiVo for the future. They’re biggest success with the new solutions is probably Shaw Cable in Canada, which is deploying their whole home system. Arris has been more successful in placing the newer units with cable MSOs (see the lower right corner of that page), but so far it is mainly very small providers or limited deployments with larger MSOs. And some in that list, like Charter, are legacy customers.

But Arris is undaunted, and they’ve decided to re-emphasize the Moxi brand by re-branding their existing whole home solution:

• The Media Gateway is now the Moxi Gateway
• The Media Player is now the Moxi Player
• The Award Winning User Interface is now the Moxi User Interface
• The Services Portal is now the Moxi Services Portal

I think this is a good move. Moxi is a good brand name and they can build on it. It automatically lends itself to “You’ve got Moxi!” style marketing campaigns. It is simple and memorable, like TiVo, and is light years better than generic names like “Media Gateway” and “Media Player”. Branding matters.

The current Arris hardware does have some advantages over the TiVo Premiere Q:

The ARRIS Moxi Gateway, Player, User Interface and Services Portal platform provide a six-tuner HD DVR with 500 Gigabytes of storage. It also includes DOCSIS 3.0 high speed data and voice, a four-port Ethernet home networking router, plus support for Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) 1.1+ home networking technology and an option for 802.11n Wi-Fi. It can connect with subscriber-owned DLNA-enabled devices across a home network, has CableCARD conditional access and DTCP-IP encryption between the in-home devices.

The Moxi Gateway has six tuners to the Q’s four, it includes a DOCSIS modem for data and an Ethernet router, so it can act as your home broadband gateway, and it supports DLNA which is notably lacking on TiVo. One thing to note though is that this Moxi whole home solution requires at least two boxes. The Moxi Gateway is just a gateway box. It doesn’t have A/V connections. You need the Moxi Player to access the content stored on the Gateway. Even if you just have one TV and one room, you’d have two boxes.

Of course, conversely, TiVo has arguably better DVR functionality, and it supports a slew of OTT services, has a related iOS app (with Android coming), and more. And TiVo has the brand clout with consumers that Moxi can’t hope to match. Still, competition is a good thing, and it sounds like TiVo may be working on a next generation unit with some of these features.

Arris really has their work cut out for them in the cable MSO market. One of the benefits for smaller MSOs in going with TiVo is the boost from the TiVo brand recognition and the OTT services, apps, etc, that TiVo brings to the table. And, to a lesser extent, the same holds true for larger MSOs like Charter. TiVo’s momentum on the back of successful deals like RCN, Suddenlink, and, especially, Virgin Media, is also powerful. We’ll see how Arris’s new branding efforts work out for them in time.

A new raft of FCC regulations, originally published October 14, 2010, go into effect August 1st, 2011. One of those new requirements is that MSOs provide their cable subscribers with tuning adapters that support a minimum of four content streams:

To address the problems with tuning adapters identified by commenters, the satisfactory access standard will require cable operators to ensure that retail devices are able to tune at least as many switched digital channels as that operator’s most sophisticated operator-supplied set-top box or four simultaneous channels, whichever is greater.

Multi-stream CableCARDs (M-Cards) support up to six content streams, but this doesn’t help users of the Ceton InfiniTV 4 Digital Cable Quad-tuner Card or the Moxi 3-Tuner DVR, and it wouldn’t be good news for the pending TiVo Premiere Elite 4-tuner DVR, for users with Switched Digital Video and tuning adapters that limit them to two streams.

You didn’t know? Even though M-Cards support six streams, tuning adapters first shipped with support for only two. A while back Motorola updated their tuning adapter firmware to support six streams, but Cisco has been dragging their feet. But it seems, with just two weeks left before the deadline, their finally rolling out new firmware for their STA1520.

There are more goodies from the FCC:

• If the MSO allows consumers to self-install anything, such as cable modem or cable box, then they must also allow CableCARD self-installs on 8/1/2011. No more truck rolls! (If they don’t allow any self-installs, they still must begin allowing CableCARD self-installs on 11/1/2011.)
• MSO’s must provide M-Cards starting 8/1/2011 – they cannot provide S-Cards unless specifically requested.
• If the cable company is doing the CableCARD install the installer must show up with at least the number of cards in the order, and they must be working cards.
• The same fee must be charged for a CableCARD whether it is used in a consumer provided host (such as a TiVo) or an MSO provided STB, starting 8/1/2011.

There is more in the FCC document.

Hopefully the new rules will lead to improvements for consumers, and lower costs – no more need to pay for an installer to stick a card in your TiVo and call in the numbers.

Cisco TA Firmware news spotted via EngadgetHD.

1) Death of the Moxi
This one’s just as much a rumor as the Launch of the BMC 3012
However here we are, with systems announcing year end lock downs etc and still no official hint of the 3012. As such I’m pretty much guessing it’s never left internal beta in St. Louis. Furthermore comments made from management recently here (SC/NC/VA group) indicate Moxi *WILL* be eventually phased out.

However at the same time, apparently we are apparently getting BMC9012s THROWN at us as no other MSO appears to be taking them. So for now the BMC9012 is alive and strong… I don’t forsee them closing up shop in markets with Moxi for quite a while (given we can’t get enough 6416s in to meet demand).

That being said, my “insider’s guess” at what’s going to happen next -
I predict no NEW MSO based Moxi boxes, but I also predict that Moxi will remain availible for at least 2 more years.

Hopefully DIGEO will get on the ball with the CableCard enabled boxes for retail, because from what I’ve seen, it seems like Charter was the last major MSO to hang on…

Thanks to Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny for the tip off.

The Moxi 3012 will provide two-way communication with the BendBroadband head-end, however it does not use tru2way but rather the legacy communication channels. A Multi-Stream CableCARD enables dual-tuner support. Deployment is targeted for sometime this quarter (4Q08), we’ll see.

(No, I didn’t really expect them to ship, but I was kind of hoping they would because I’d like to see them deliver on a promise someday. And yes, I was feeling snarky.)

Of course, back in January Digeo’s then COO, now President, Greg Gudorf told me that their cable DVR would ship by the end of 1Q08. So we’ll see how this roll out goes.

The other Moxi DVR will be a CableCARD consumer product sold at retail and expected to ship in January. That will be a year after Digeo suddenly canceled all of their planned consumer products, just days after showing them at CES and talking up the launch plans.

Details on the consumer product are thin, I’m presuming they’ll have something to say about it at CES in January. Of course, they did last year too. Unsurprisingly it will be a CableCARD-enabled DVR, and it will not be tru2way-enabled. It sounds like they’re pitching all the same features they were on the canceled products – music and photo access, content partners, home control integration, etc. For music content Digeo has lined up FineTune, Rhapsody and Sirius and they have Flickr for photos.

The one new item that I found interesting is that they’re implementing DLNA support. I’d like to see more products supporting DLNA, standards are good and DLNA has growing support across a number of products such as the Xbox 360, PS3, HP Media Smart TVs, Blu-ray players, etc.

Digeo is also apparently still working on their Moxi TV for PC software, which I was told was in beta and close to release at CES 2008 in January. Though according to TWICE they have it running on XP, Vista, and Media Center versions of Windows now, and not just XP as at CES. No word on when it might be available to consumers.

Gudorf told TWICE that Digeo is working on future products for post-July 2009 which will support tru2way. Digeo signed the tru2way accord in June. But I’m not even going to devote any mental energy to that until Digeo manages to ship something to consumers.

Digeo started talking about launching new consumer products two years ago, in September 2006. (Which I picked up, amusingly enough, from an article in TWICE.) I talked to them at CES 2007 where they were showing mock ups and no real products with the promise of shipping later in the year.

They insisted they’d ship in time for the 2007 holidays up through September. (Oddly enough, another article from TWICE. Is covering Digeo a September tradition for them?) Then in November they admitted they weren’t going to ship in 2007.

Then I talked to them again at CES 2008, and they were showing off some of the same mock-ups they’d had at CES 2007, as well as some actual products. Just a week later they canceled the products and laid off nearly half of their staff. Digeo’s Gary Gudorf talked to me the next day to offer clarifications, including that their cable MSO product would ship by the end of 1Q08, which it didn’t.

We didn’t hear anything else until April when details on the cable product emerged. And then in May they exhibited at The Cable Show and issued a press release announcing Charter’s intention to carry it. In June Digeo signed the tru2way accord.

And now here we are in September again, two years after they first announced their intention to enter the consumer DVR market, and they’re promising a box ‘expected to ship in January’. You’ll pardon me if I don’t hold my breath. Assuming they do exhibit at CES in January, I’ll check out their offerings, again. As I said when I covered them this year, I think they have some good design points. But none of it matters until they manage to get a box on retail shelves.

I hear it’ll come bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.

Tipped off by EngadgetHD.

EDIT: This got some attention in AVS Forum, including from a Charter rep, who wasn’t encouraging:

Ironically yesterday I got whispers from a contact in St Louis who works with someone who’s got a beta 3012 (Don’t get hopes up, so far it seems only a few elite managers and tech ops people in St Louis have gotten to beta this unit)

Apparently it’s still got quite a few bugs, which I think is very odd, given really all they needed to do was improve on the existing hardware and leave the software alone.

At any rate I don’t expect to see them in 2 weeks, heck at the rate things are going, I’d consider us lucky if we see them before Q3 2009

I’d say I’m surprised or that this is unusual so close to a planned release – but frankly this is what I’ve come to expect from Digeo. They’ve had one product actually make it to market, the BMC9000 STB series from Motorola running the Moxi software. But that launched back in 2004 and has been out of production for a long time now. At its peak it only reached around 400,000 users, and the number of Moxi uses is believed to be much smaller now as units have been replaced with newer, non-Moxi DVR models. Unsurprisingly the main MSO to use Moxi was Charter, which, like Digeo, is controlled by Paul Allen. But even with it being ‘in the family’ Charter’s use of Moxi was minor.

Moxi’s history since they were acquired by Digeo has been one of failed execution. Early on Moxi was on their way to being a competitor in the consumer DVR space and they had some cutting edge plans, then Digeo acquired them and refocused them on cable MSOs instead of retail. Digeo acquired Moxi way back in 2002 – and in six years what have they done? One product which never achieved more than minor market penetration, and is now well out of date and discontinued. Aside from that they have a history of press releases and announced partnerships, awards won for products announced but never shipped, staff layoffs, and repeated product delays and cancellations. If they didn’t have Paul Allen backing them I don’t see how they’d still be in business. Digeo needs to ship a product, a good product, to significant numbers of users, if they want to earn consumer trust again.

Ben Drawbaugh from EngadgetHD was at The Cable Show and he got a picture of the unit on display. Is it just me, or does it look like a slightly shorter (no optical drive so I guess they didn’t need the room) version of the now defunct Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR? Only in black instead of white. I have to admit, while I thought the Mutli-Room HD DMR was hideous, this one is only bland. The change in color helps.

According to the press release:

The announcement marks the first order and deployment of Digeo’s second generation offering which incorporates a dual HD-tuner digital video recorder (DVR). The Moxi 3012 also includes the Emmy(R) award-winning Moxi Menu user interface, along with the following advanced features:

* Full DVR functionality
* CableCARD(R) multi-stream 2-way support
* Remote web scheduling capable
* External storage options up to 1TB
* Extensive data mining through the Moxi portal for real-time customer usage insights

So it is a dual-tuner CableCARD DVR. Sounds like it relies on M-Card, which fits with what was known about their canceled consumer products. They don’t disclose the internal storage capacity, but given the ’3012′ naming scheme, I’d guess at 120GB. ‘Remote web scheduling capable’ is interesting, but the question is will Charter enable it? They don’t say if the external storage is USB or eSATA, and I can’t tell from Ben’s photo. The data mining is both intriguing and worrying. Is it anonymized? Just how much data do they track? How personal is it? Some people dislike even TiVo’s anonymized, aggregated data collection. And this is ‘extensive’ and ‘real-time’.

While they mention 2-way CableCARD support, they don’t specifically mention what is supported – SDV? VOD? PPV? I’d venture a guess that SDV is supported, since the Tuning Resolver Adapter is close to finalized. They could build that capability into the box. Since this isn’t a consumer device and the software can, and probably will, be customized for each MSO, I think it is reasonable to expect they’ll be supporting VOD & PPV. But without an OCAP platform I don’t know about advanced cable services in general.

And, according to the press release, Digeo is continuing to work on an OCAP/tru2way version of their Moxi platform.

I have Charter, though they never offered Moxi in my neck of the woods. If they do start offering this Moxi 3012 in my area I’ll get one, at least for a while, to see how it fares.

EDIT: I received the following via the contact form after originally posting this:

On your press release of the 3012 I have a few answers to your speculation

1) Remote scheduling will be enabled, current Digeo Moxi 9012 users already enjoy this feature. Scheduling is done by logging into the charter.net portal with your charter.net email address and going to the TV section. First time users will have to associate the box with their email there.

Unfortunately at this time it requires that the customer have our High Speed Data product in addition to the DVR and that both services be on the same account.

2) Expansion
This is already an option on the older 9012 and 9022 boxes as well. Currently the older boxes only supported USB expansion. I would assume that the 3012 is the same (unless it has eSATA ports)

3) 3012 model name.
Unless Digeo’s changed their naming scheme the 12 in 3012 should stand for 1 TV, 2 Tuners.

In the 9000 series there were two models, 9012 and 9022. The 9022 supported two TVs through the usage of a “moxi mate” box

I’m guessing givng the 9022 configuration that the 3012 should have no less than a 160 gig base hard drive (to compete with the Motorola 6416 which offers 160 gigs)

Hope this information is helpfull!

James Doster
Digital Coordinator
Charter Communications

The press release:

May 19, 2008 06:00 ET

Charter Communications to Deploy Moxi Cable HD DVR 3012 from Digeo

Charter first to offer next generation Moxi for Cable

NEW ORLEANS, May 19 /PRNewswire/ — Digeo, Inc., today announced that Charter Communications, Inc. will begin deploying the new Moxi Cable HD DVR 3012.

The announcement marks the first order and deployment of Digeo’s second generation offering which incorporates a dual HD-tuner digital video recorder (DVR). The Moxi 3012 also includes the Emmy® award-winning Moxi Menu user interface, along with the following advanced features:

* Full DVR functionality
* CableCARD® multi-stream 2-way support
* Remote web scheduling capable
* External storage options up to 1TB
* Extensive data mining through the Moxi portal for real-time customer usage insights

“Charter’s support of our newest version of the Moxi platform marks an important milestone for Digeo,” said Greg Gudorf, CEO of Digeo, Inc. “We’re confident that Charter’s customers will enjoy the many new features that the Moxi 3012 provides.”

“Charter is committed to providing its customers a superior video service,” said Ted Schremp, Senior Vice President of Product Management and Strategy for Charter. “The Moxi platform is very popular with our video customers for its ease of use and functionality. The Moxi 3012 HD DVR has even more of the features and interactivity our customers value, and we are excited to bring the next generation of Moxi to our customers’ homes.”

The Moxi Cable HD DVR 3012 is targeted for deployment to Charter customers in the third quarter.

About Digeo, Inc.

Digeo, Inc. creates state-of-the-art home entertainment technologies, including digital media recorder (DMR) platforms and services. The company’s mission is to enable the best consumer experience in high-definition entertainment for the connected home.

Digeo’s flagship product — the two-time Emmy® Award-winning Moxi Media Center — serves as a hub for whole-home distribution of digital entertainment and more than 400,000 units have been shipped to more than 100 markets by eight cable operators nationwide. The company also licenses its technology to third-party companies as the user interface, application or customer connection portal to drive their products or services. Additionally, Digeo recently reached an agreement on a tru2way host device license with CableLabs and is developing a Moxi application for tru2way. Backed by Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc., Digeo is based in Kirkland, Wash. For more information, please visit http://www.digeo.com/.

Digeo, Moxi, and their respective logos are the trademarks of Digeo, Inc. Use of the trademarks and service marks of the National Television Academy (“NTA”), including the mark EMMY®, requires the prior express written permission of National Television Academy. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

For more information, media only:
Elissa Everett, Digeo, Inc.
425-896-6279
elissa.everett@digeo.com

Anita Lamont, Charter Communications
314-543-2215

Marc Finer, Communications Research, Inc.
412-765-3535
mfiner@comm-res-inc.com

Source: Digeo, Inc.

CONTACT: Elissa Everett of Digeo, Inc., +1-425-896-6279,
elissa.everett@digeo.com; or Anita Lamont of Charter Communications,
+1-314-543-2215; or Marc Finer of Communications Research, Inc.,
+1-412-765-3535, mfiner@comm-res-inc.com

Web site: http://www.digeo.com/

However, it seems it was just delayed a bit. Jeff Baumgartner at Light Reading has a sharp eye and he caught something in a press release from CableLabs about the upcoming Cable Show. (I see something about Sling Media in there too…) One of the products they announced that will be on display is the Digeo Moxi HD DVR 3012. CableLabs says:

Digeo will showcase its latest DVR for cable, the Moxi HD DVR 3012. Digeo will be showing the Emmy Award-winning user interface, dual digital tuning capability, and integrated CableCARD. This new DVR includes a streamlined processor and increased hard drive.

Over at Zatz Not Funny, reader ‘cableric’ left a comment with some industry insider information on the new box, which doesn’t sound all that encouraging really.

Oh, and this is what I spotted about Sling:

EchoStar Technologies LLC will demonstrate SlingModem™, the first DOCSIS® cable modem that fully integrates the place-shifting capabilities pioneered in the original Slingbox™. With the SlingModem, customers can easily watch and control their TV programming on any Internet-connected computing device just as they would in front of the living room television. The SlingModem provides the cable customer with both a broadband connection as well as the place-shifting functionality made famous by the Slingbox.

I’ve covered the SlingModem before, most recently from CES in January.

And they also mention Motorola’s SDV Tuning Resolver, the MTR700, which will be demo’d using a TiVo:

Motorola will demonstrate its MTR700 Tuning Adapter which connects unidirectional UDCPs (including a TiVo device, in specific) to a cable network, accessing multimedia content in the cable network’s switched digital video (SDV) tier. Seamless tuning of the TiVo device across both broadcast and SDV tiers will be shown. Motorola will also demonstrate its Integrated CMTS (I-CMTS) and SURFboard® cable modems, in a DOCSIS 3.0 setting using the traditional Motorola 2:8 DS/US Module and new TX32 high-density Decoupled Downstream Module.

That’s very good news, as it means TiVo must have their software well along, which means a summer release will probably happen as planned.

It sounds like there will be a lot of SDV & tru2way demos at The Cable Show, I wish I was going.

Picked up via Zatz Not Funny.

The layoffs at Digeo impact approximately half of the staff, with nearly 80 people being released, from roughly 160 employees. Most of those laid off are from areas of the company not involved in product development. Digeo is looking to refocus on the development of a few key products going forward. The products that remain in development are:
- Moxi HD DVR for Cable
- Next-gen Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR
- Moxi TV for PC software
- Moxi OCAP/Tru2Way software

The Moxi HD DVR for Cable seems to be the closest to release. It is in field trials now and Gudorf says it will be released this quarter (1Q08). The Moxi HD DVR for Cable is a new hardware platform targeting cable MSOs, and it will compete with STBs from Motorola, Cisco, et al. Gudorf did say that it is an OCAP capable platform, which makes sense given the need to be competitive with the new STBs offered by other vendors. He was unwilling to state which cable MSOs might carry the new box, instead referring me to their current MSO partners as likely candidates for the new platform.

Gudorf was unwilling to share specifics on the next-generation consumer platform at this time, deferring any feature announcements until later this year. However, he did refer to it as “the next-generation Multi-Room HD DMR”, which certainly provides a strong hint at one of the product features. He did state that it is a CableCARD system, which is what I’d expect. From our conversation it sounds like it has been in development as the intended follow-on to the original Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR, which was canceled yesterday. Reading between the lines I’d say that, due to the lengthy delay in bringing the original box to market, Digeo simply decided to drop the original product to refocus resources on the newer platform as their first retail offering. (Shades of Atari dropping the Panther for the Jaguar. I’d guess maybe two people reading this got that reference.) Based on the state of the units shown at CES and what I heard from Digeo’s reps at the show, this is almost certainly the best move. It seemed likely the unit wouldn’t make it to market until late this year, at best, and by then the platform would be eclipsed by newer systems. I tried to get some more details on the unit, such as if it would be cable-only or if, like the TiVo Series3 & TiVo HD, it would support ATSC as well. But he again deflected questions on product specifics until later this year.

The Moxi TV for PC software, the Windows XP version of which is currently in beta, will remain in beta while work on the Vista version is completed. It will be released for both XP and Vista once the Vista version is completed and goes through beta. So it doesn’t sound like there are any real changes there, aside from possibly delaying the XP version’s release for the Vista version to be completed. That seems like a smart move to me, there will be less confusion if consumers don’t have to worry about which Windows they have, or wonder why it doesn’t work on their new PC.

Work on the OCAP/Tru2Way Moxi software continues. Gudorf declined to get into specifics on the software or time frame, other than to say that it is an important platform given the direction the market is taking. I’d certainly agree.

Digeo’s previously announced relationships with Monster Cable, 4Home Media, Flickr, Finetune, Accedo Broadband, and CloverLeaf Digital all remain in place. We’ve seen details on all of these, except for the Monster Cable relationship. All that has been stated regarding that relationship, to my knowledge, is that the two companies are exploring future product development opportunities together. I tried to get more details on the relationship from Gudorf, but, other than to say Digeo is excited to be working with Monster Cable, he left any product announcements as Monster’s to make. I am quite curious as to what that relationship may produce.

Again, I’d like to thank Gaby Adam and Greg Gudorf for taking the time to speak with me, clarify Digeo’s plans, and answer my questions. While I have at times been harsh in my posts about Digeo Moxi I do believe they have a good platform and the potential to provide TiVo some real competition in the DVR market. I think they need to improve some areas of the product, based on what I’ve seen to date, and I’m hopeful that this reorganization and refocusing of their development efforts will produce those changes, resulting in an even stronger product reaching the market. I look forward to seeing what details Digeo announces later this year with regard to their next-generation Multi-Room HD DMR, and I’ll be looking for more information on the HD DVR for Cable later this quarter, as well as keeping an eye out for any changes in the Moxi TV for PC and OCAP software efforts.

If I learn of any new information I’ll be sure to share it.

In addition to the product testing, Digeo is laying off nearly half of its staff, and current CEO Mike Fidler will be replaced by COO Greg Gudorf. Fidler has stated that he chose to step down on his own, and is not being pushed out. He will stay on as long as is necessary to help Gudorf with the transition. Considering all the trouble Digeo has had in bringing Moxi products to market, the management shake-up is hardly surprising. After Digeo acquired Moxi in 2002, they pulled plans to release retail Moxi products and, instead, focused on licensing the software to cable MSOs. However, that tactic didn’t work out very well, with only roughly 400,000 homes using the Moxi software at this point. In late 2006 Digeo began talking about finally bringing Moxi into the retail market to compete with TiVo, and at CES 2007 they made a splash by showing off mock-ups of the Home Cinema DMR and the Multi-Room DMR, claiming they’d be on shelves by the fall of 2007. Clearly they failed to meet those goals, as the Home Cinema DMR had only recently gone into beta and the Multi-Room DMR still exists only in prototype and development models, and the display units at CES 2008 weren’t even running.

When Digeo first announced their plans the only viable 3rd party HD DVR was the TiVo Series3, which was still selling for nearly $800. However, in the meantime TiVo released the TiVo HD with a $300 MSRP while continuing to expand the feature set. Between sales, online discounts, and rebates the Series3 is regularly available for $350-$400 and the TiVo HD for ~$250. While the Moxi’s expected higher MSRP, expected to be around $1,000, would be partially offset by the lack of a subscription, it was still expected to be quite a bit more expensive while lacking some of the core features offered by TiVo. Based on my past comments it is probably no surprise that at this point I think canceling these units is the right thing to do. I just hope that they pay attention and take the best features of both units to produce one solid DVR with CableCARD and ATSC support. The Moxi software does have some very good things going for it, Digeo just needs to bring it together with a solid, affordable hardware platform, and fill in a few of the gaps in the software.

Also not mentioned in the article is the OCAP/Tru2Way port of the Moxi interface that Digeo claims to be working on currently. I would have to expect them to continue working on that, for the sake of the future of the company. The entire cable industry is moving to OCAP, aka Tru2Way, and a number of consumer electronics products supporting it were unveiled at CES. They really need to have a play in that area of the market going forward.

What is known is that Digeo will focus on another product, the Moxi HD DVR for Cable, which is due ‘sometime later this year’. Little is known about this product, but a tiny image of it does appear on this page of Digeo.com in the lower-right corner. It is hard to tell from such a small image, but it looks to be quite a bit smaller than the Multi-Room HD DMR, which is good (see my earlier opinion on the looks of the Multi-Room box). It is black, and seems to more closely resemble the Home Cinema box overall. I can’t tell from the image if it has a DVD drive, as the two canceled units did. I do note that it is called a ‘DVR’ rather than a ‘DMR’, which makes me wonder if it will have the media features supported by the now-canceled units. And the fact that CNET referred to it as the ‘Moxi HD DVR for Cable‘ makes me wonder if it has any support for ATSC, or if it suffers the same glaring flaw as the Multi-Room DMR in lacking it.

There is a press release from May 7, 2007 in which Digeo announced a ‘Moxi HD DVR’ and the Moxi for OCAP development efforts. However, that press released also claimed the HD DVR would be available in 4Q07 and the first version of the OCAP software would be available in 4Q07 with additional versions in early 2008. From the press release it also sounds as if the HD DVR is aimed for sale to cable MSOs, while the CNET article makes it sound like a retail box. So it isn’t clear if this is the same unit they’re working on now for later in 2008, or if it is a newer unit with the same name. It could be that they’ll produce one unit and seek to distribute it both via cable MSOs and retail.

When I heard the news I contacted Digeo and their public relations firm for a clarification on these issues. Understandably, given the chaos caused by layoffs (I’ve been through that myself), no one was available to speak with me today. However, I currently have a conversation scheduled for tomorrow and I’ll follow up once I get some clarification on their product plans going forward.

Thanks to Brad Linder of PVR Wire @ TV Squad for the tip-off.

EDIT 19:33: EngadgetHD got a hold of a Digeo press release which makes things a bit clearer than CNET’s article. There are two products Digeo will continue to work on – the Moxi HD DVR for Cable and a ‘next-generation consumer DMR’ which will be a retail product. That makes things a bit more clear.

The Moxi HD DVR for Cable is intended for cable MSOs and the press release states that it is in trial now and will be released as planned. (Of course, it was ‘planned’ for 4Q07.) The next-generation consumer DMR has apparently been in development along side the canceled products, and development will continue.

So one is a new STB for the cable industry, which will likely be cable-only, while the other will be a retail STB, which will hopefully support CableCARD and ATSC. I’ll see what I can find out tomorrow.

EDIT: I’ve posted more information from my conversation with COO Greg Gudorf.

As an aside, I asked about the Moxi OCAP port that was reported back in May and was told that work had ‘just started’ on that so it was far too early to provide any details.

There are three products in the line-up, the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR (and associated Moxi Mate client box), the Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR, and the Moxi TV for PC software.

I know I’ve been harsh at times in the past when posting about Moxi, so I thought I’d start with some of the things I like.

First, as it is what you notice first, their UI looks good. It has been engineered for 16:9 HD displays and it really ‘pops’. All the graphics are sharp, the colors are bright, text is crisp – it just looks damn good. And, frankly, as much as I like it, TiVo’s UI is looking a bit dated. TiVo really needs to fully rework their UI for HD. At home I have my Series3 on HDMI1 and my PS3 on HDMI2 – and if I switch between the TiVo UI and Sony’s XMB UI on the PS3, which is all HD, I really notice the difference. So Moxi gets points for the look of their UI. And, while I didn’t think it was as intuitive as TiVo’s UI, I found it fairly easy to navigate.

While they weren’t demonstrating it yet, the concept of being able to stream HD video for multi-room playback to a simple client box is nice. That’s something I’ve wished TiVo would do for several years now. I like TiVo’s ability to copy shows between units, and I don’t think it should go away, but I think it would be nice if streaming were an option as well. Being able to have a simple client box, instead of a full-fledged DVR, in another room would be nice. (Maybe TiVo should hook-up with Sling and find a way to make the SlingCatcher a stream client for a TiVo.) I’m not sold on Digeo’s planned implementation, but the overall concept is nice.

The unit I played with was also fairly responsive to the remote, pretty good performance. Selections came right up.

The units support clear QAM tuning, with guide data, unlike TiVo. With the TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD you can manually tune clear QAM channels without CableCARDs, but need the cards for any guide data and real TiVo functionality (Season Passes, etc). So it is nice that the Moxi units have this.

The way the Moxi UI works is kind of two dimensional. There is a horizontal ‘bar’ that you scroll across, and each item on the bar then has a vertical menu in that category. There also isn’t much ‘drill down’ on the Moxi menus, they toss things left and right on the screen more often. So you may select something from the vertical menu, which is on the left side of the screen, and that opens selections on the right side of the screen. It doesn’t really feel like you’re navigating a hierarchical menu as much as TiVo does. Sometimes it felt easier to get ‘lost’ than on TiVo, but overall it was fairly good. Fortunately, TiVo has been moving in this direction too, collapsing more of their menus and doing more of the side-by-side style of screens. This is seen more in their OCAP software, but it is working its way into the standalone units too. The new Web Video UI on the TiVo uses this kind of flow for example.

Moxi will have online scheduling, like TiVo. Unlike TiVo, they will have instantaneous conflict notification. So if you try to schedule a show on the web and it conflicts with a show already scheduled on your DMR, the website tells you immediately and asks you what you want to do. This is accomplished through communication with the DMR in real time. So there is no delay as there currently is with TiVo, where you have to wait for a confirmation email to see if the request worked or not. Now, this could change with TiVo with their coming implementation of XMPP as part of the web video work. With XMPP the scheduling server could IM the TiVo with the request immediately – and immediately be notified of any conflicts. I am hoping TiVo goes this route, it is a nice feature. I’ve never liked that aspect of online scheduling for TiVo.

I also like the physical design of the Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR. It is basically an AMD Live! PC, but the chassis is very nice. There is a small LCD display on the left front which can display the time, channel, etc, and you can even set the background to any photograph you want to use. I think they did a nice job on the physical design of the box.

Unfortunately, there were more issues I didn’t like, or found unsatisfying. I couldn’t recommend Moxi over TiVo to anyone based on what I saw today, there are too many missing features or rough edges for what is being billed as a premium product.

The Moxi TV for PC software I had the least issues with. It is the full-blown Moxi interface, running on Windows XP – Home, Pro, or Media Center. It does not run on Vista at this time, but I was told that is being worked on. I hope they can tackle that soon, since it does kind of look weak not to support Vista this long after it has shipped. Apparently all three products use the very same code base (C++ I was told) and it is just compiled for the different products. The PC software has some minor differences due to the fact that it is running on a PC. The on-screen information browser for news, etc, is not there – since you’re on a PC and can use a real browser, after all. Frankly, I can only hope that the TiVo for PC software being developed by Nero comes as close to reproducing the TiVo experience on a PC.

The number of tuners cards supported at this time is limited, but I was told that is being worked on to expand support to additional cards. Now, the person who gave me the demo indicated that HD tuners would work – but the spec sheet and web site both say it only supports SD antenna or cable, no HD at all. I did catch her in a couple of mistakes, so I tend to believe the spec sheet in this instance. They really need to enable HD support, at least OTA ATSC, especially if this isn’t going to ship for several months. OTA NTSC is going away, remember. Who is going to want to buy a product that might no longer work a few months later? Or even work now for channels that have switched already, the FCC says it is OK for channels to turn off their analog signals before the deadline.

It does provide you with a single interface to your media – it plays back MP3s, views photos, even plays CDs and DVDs. And the rep told me it’ll play Blu-ray or HD DVD discs – whatever the hardware it is on can play. One nice feature is that it will work with Microsoft’s Media Center remote control, and apparently other PC remotes, so you don’t need to drive it from the keyboard. The demo was run using the MS remote. It is a nice effort, and I see potential, but they really need to get it working on Vista and get HD tuner support in there before they ship the first version commercially.

OK, moving on to the Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR. I still don’t think the Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR makes a lick of sense in today’s market. It is hobbled by lacking any support for CableCARD. It is NTSC/ATSC OTA and analog cable and clear QAM only. NTSC OTA is going away in a year, of course, so that’s not really a factor. Just how many people are looking to record OTA ATSC and analog cable and clear QAM, but no encrypted digital cable channels? On many cable systems, that’s a number of channels, and usually all of the premium channels. I think the lack of CableCARD will be a big deal for a product at this end of the market.

The design is very nice, as I said, but I don’t understand the niche it is trying to fill – and the reps I talked to really couldn’t explain that either. I even had two Digeo reps say to me that they don’t expect it to be a big seller. It is something of a ‘home theater in a box’ with a CD/DVD drive, DVR functionality, and built-in receiver functions with direct speaker connections for 5.1 audio. But it has some failings even in this regard. It has a single stereo L/R input and a single S/PDIF optical and coaxial input – both ‘for future use’, but that’s it. It isn’t really a full A/V receiver replacement.

It doesn’t work with the Moxi Mate, so there is no mutli-room support on this product. I think that they got some things very right, but other areas left me scratching my head. I’m really curious as to how they’re going to position it in the market when it launches.

It upscales DVDs – but only to 720p, not 1080i or 1080p like most upscaling DVD players. Why only 720p? No idea. The HDMI output is 1.1, while most newer products have 1.3a at this point. Keep in mind the box isn’t out yet, and it has just gone into beta. One of the reps told me they’d been hoping for an early 2008 release, but that based on feedback during testing it was pushed back to later in the year. See the aforementioned ‘May’ time frame another rep mentioned. Since it was originally due in late 2007, and it seems they did some refreshing of the design from the prototypes shown earlier, I don’t know why they didn’t do a little more work to smooth some of the rough edges.

It just seems like an awkward combination of features, with some odd omissions. It seems to be a Jack of all trades, not quite a master of any. Which might be OK otherwise, but it is being pitched as a premium product, and it is coming to market later than planned so there is more time to get it right. Some specs, like hard drive capacity, have not been finalized yet. Nor has the final pricing. Both will be determined just before release, based on the market at the time.

Then we come to the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR and associated MoxiMate, which is their flagship product. This is the unit with the expected $1000 price point. While the PC software and the Home Cinema unit are currently both in beta, this unit is not yet in testing. In fact, when I asked about that, one of the Digeo reps said “We just barely got development units of that one.” And this was announced last year for release in late 2007 – sounds like there was quite a delay.

Additionally, while the Moxi TV for PC and Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR units at the show were live and running, the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMRs that I saw were seemingly all dummy units. Some of them had cables connected to the back at the demo stations, seemingly running the demos, but it was being smoke-and-mirrored. The ‘shelf’ they sat on had a compartment underneath with an IR transparent white plastic front. Inside that compartment was a Home Cinema box that was really running the demo. The people doing the demos sure made it sound like it was the multi-room box doing the work, which I felt was a little deceptive. Based on the comments from the reps and the state of the units at the show, I got the feeling that the mutli-room boxes are much further behind on the development curve than the two in beta and we won’t see it available until 2H08, maybe late in the year, barring more delays.

Speaking of delays, how about the looks of this box? Bear with me, it ties together. As much as I like the looks of the Home Cinema, I hate the looks of the Multi-room. You might say it is minimalistic – I say it is fugly. Seriously, I think it is an extremely unattractive box. To me it looks cheap, like a lab-mule prototype. It is way too big with that dull, plain face. And it is kind of silver/white – it’d stick out badly next to most A/V gear which tends to be black or silver. Fugly. The same design cues work well enough on the MoxiMate because it is compact, but damn it doesn’t scale well. And I’m not the only one to think so, I over-heard the same thing from a couple of other attendees while I was there.

I even observed a demo being given (to Gizmodo, actually) and they mentioned the looks and size of the box. Digeo’s rep said that it the size was due to the layout of the components in the original design and that they’d decided to stick with it rather than re-do the layout because then they could “bring it to market faster”. Seriously? Mock-ups of the box with the same look and feel were first shown in late 2006, and you had them at CES 2007. Now you have them at CES 2008, and the box won’t be out until sometime later this year. You’ve had major delays, how is that bringing it to market faster? The time was there, this is supposedly a premium box. (I told you it would tie together.) That excuse doesn’t hold, especially for a premium product. Give it the attention due a premium box, re-do the layout to shrink the currently massive size, and get whomever did the industrial design for the Home Cinema box involved to make it look good. Seriously, look at that thing, it has the size and personality of an old desktop PC! If I had any Photoshop skills I’d slap an old IBM PS/2 logo on there. I’d just write it off as a prototype chassis, but Digeo says that’s the intended final look. I wouldn’t want it in my entertainment center.

Functionally, unlike the Home Cinema box, the Multi-room supports a single M-Card CableCARD to support encrypted digital cable on its internal tuners. However, unlike the Home Cinema box, the Multi-room does not support antenna – no ATSC. So that’s one big knock against it compared to TiVo. Why? This is one of the things I don’t understand. They have one box which supports antenna, but not CableCARD, and another box that supports CableCARD but not antenna. TiVo supports both in the Series3 and TiVo HD. Hell, DISH Network supports satellite and ATSC in the VIP622/722 DVRs, and DirecTV supports both in the HR10-250 and HR20 DVRs – and now with the AM21 add-on to the HR21. Even XStreamHD is supporting ATSC on their new satellite product! Digeo, what the hell? This is a ‘premium product’, right? You clearly have the ability to handle ATSC, how much would it really cost you to put ATSC tuning in? Not enough to warrant leaving it out.

My past concerns over the reliance on M-Card are fading with time. By the time this unit ships, M-Card will likely be universally available. When it was originally slated for late 2007, it was a concern as a number of MSOs still weren’t supplying M-Cards and only had S-Cards. It may still be an issue when the box ships, but I suspect it will be in limited areas.

Unlike the Home Cinema unit, this box will upscale DVDs to 1080i, which is the best output resolution it has. That’s decent enough.

Now, the Moxi Mate is a nice concept, as I said above. It is a simple box with no drive and no fan, so it is very quiet. And since it has no moving parts, it should be very reliable. It has just enough memory to cache a video stream from the Multi-Room HD DMR, and it provides all the functionality you get sitting in front of the main unit – full access to everything. It should be a lot more affordable than buying another full DVR. And streaming gives you instant access to everything on the main box, no delays. And, online TiVo where you can only access video off other units, as I said, you have access to everything – scheduling, etc. So you can be in the bedroom and setup a recording on the DMR in the living room. All things I’d love to see TiVo do.

However, the way Digeo is planning to go about it seems iffy to me. They’re basically inventing their own system. Instead of using an established system like Ethernet, WiFi, or MoCA, they’re planning on sending FireWire signals over the coax cables. There will be a dongle that connects to the FireWire port on the units, and then to the coax cabling, to handle that. They claim it is because FireWire is approved for transport of content protected by DTCP, aka ’5C’. Well, yes, but there is also DTCP-IP which is approved for the same content transported over IP networks. If they implemented their streaming system using industry standards then there is a chance they could interoperate with other vendors at some point. But rolling their own solution makes that unlikely.

And what if you want to use the Moxi Mate in a location that doesn’t have a coax drop? You’re out of luck. I know from experience that running coax cabling is a lot more of a pain than running Cat5 Ethernet cable – let alone using WiFi. If it weren’t tethered to coax, the Moxi Mate would be great for adding a set in rooms where you don’t have the cabling for a direct feed.

While the main unit has reportedly been engineered to support multiple Moxi Mate units ‘in the future’, when it ships it will only support a single Moxi Mate. So no putting the main unit in the living room with one Mate in the bedroom and one in the office, etc.

Finally, the software itself. While I like the design of the UI overall, there were several issues. The horizontal bar you scroll through to switch categories has several pre-defined category filters such as sports, movies, and news. I found that annoying after about 30 seconds. First of all, the filters lump together both upcoming programs and your recordings. Many people who use DVRs, myself included, never use Live TV – we only watch recordings. And in six years of using TiVo I have never used a ‘Movies’, ‘Sports’, or ‘News’ filter, nor have I had any desire to do so. And I have especially not used a ‘Kids’ filter. Having them as unavoidable elements of the main UI navigation was really quite annoying. I asked if there was a way to disable them and was told no. There needs to be. And, while Digeo is at it, for those who do use such things, there should be a way to customize the filters. Maybe I’d like it if I could have an ‘Anime’ filter or a ‘Sci-Fi’ filter.

The list of recordings is sorted chronologically. I asked about it and was told there is no way to change the sorting – no alpha sorting. Scrolling through screens of content to look was a bit annoying. Especially if someone sticks an eSATA drive on there and has hundreds of recordings. There is a kind of grouping in the list. When you highlight a series you record the recorded episodes pop up in a box to the right. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I really didn’t like the way recordings are listed. It didn’t feel as clear and intuitive as TiVo’s Now Playing List. I don’t know if it is because the screen is a lot ‘busier’ or what. Maybe you get used to it.

The Moxi equivalent of Season Passes looks pretty solid. It seems to have all the options TiVo provides, plus a few more. You can tell it to keep recordings some number of days, in addition to the basic ‘space needed’ and ‘until I delete’ option. You can adjust the start and end times, record just first run or allow repeats, set how many episodes to keep, and set the SP priority. So scheduling SPs is very much like TiVo. There is a time slot restriction option which, if I understand correctly, would allow you to limit the unit to recording a show to within a specific window. Useful for shows which often have bad guide data and air several times a day. I know this has been an oft-requested feature on TiVo. So Digeo seems to have done a decent job there.

Conversely they did a terrible job on WishLists. How terrible? Well, they don’t exist at all. I explicitly asked about this one because I make heavy use of Auto-Record WishLists on my TiVo and not having them would be a show stopper for me. Consider my show stopped. While they have a fairly powerful search functionality – keywords, actors, etc – which are similar to TiVo’s WishList searches, I was told there is no way to save those searches, let alone set them to record automatically. And just to make sure I wasn’t mis-understanding I asked the question multiple ways – no, there is no WishList-style functionality. That’s huge, IMHO.

Another issue – while the Moxi Multi-room HD DMR can stream to the Moxi Mate, and it can access digital music and photos from a PC, it can’t do anything with video. There is no TiVoToGo/TiVoToComeBack functionality. You can’t copy video to a PC from a Moxi, or to a Moxi from a PC. And that includes Moxi TV for PC – even if you have that on your PC you can’t share video with a hardware Moxi unit. There is also no Multi-Room Viewing style functionality with the main units – Home Cinema units cannot share video – copied or streamed, with each other or with Multi-room boxes. And, if I understand correctly, even the Multi-room units cannot share video – it is just from a Multi-room unit to a Moxi Mate. But I’m not 100% sure on that one, I didn’t think to ask specifically about that scenario.

Of course, that means no transferring video to your iPod, PSP, etc. And no transferring your downloads, rips, and home videos to your Moxi to watch on your TV.

The Flickr viewing, FineTune music, casual games, etc, were extremely similar in functionality to the Music, Photos, Programs & More applications on a TiVo. Moxi does have a lot more games. If TiVo would re-invigorate HME development, that wouldn’t be an issue. *ahem* Same concepts, very similar implementations. So they’re decent enough. With music and photos, since the unit has a CD/DVD drive, it can rip music from your CDs and build a library. However, as I understand it, that uses space on the Moxi’s drive. It can also display photos from your digital camera, apparently via the front-panel USB port.

There is a ‘SuperTicker’ that can scroll across the bottom of the screen as you watch TV – like the tickers on news channels – with news headlines, sports info, etc. That actually seems like a neat concept. Except that it isn’t customizable – I asked. So you get the pre-selected categories. I have no interest in sports, I wouldn’t want to see that scrolling by. Conversely, I could see sports fanatics turning it off just to avoid spoilers for games they couldn’t watch live. Nice concept, needs work – allow users to (de)select which content shows up in the ticker.

Moxi has no KidZone functionality, of course, But it does have basic parental controls which allow you to lock out content by rating or by channel. Your standard V-Chip kind of thing. You can also (de)select which channels show up in your listings – almost exactly the same as TiVo’s ‘Channel List’, as well as setting Favorites – just like TiVo.

Digeo was also demonstrating the home control abilities built into the Moxi software through their partnership with 4HomeMedia, announced last September. 4HomeMedia uses Z-Wave modules to control devices in the home. Moxi’s demo including controlling some lamps – you could turn them on and off, and control the dimmer settings. You could also setup macros so you could have ‘Movie Time’ which would automatically adjust the room’s lighting with one selection. Z-Wave modules can control other items as well. As a geek I thought this was very cool. However, even as a geek, I haven’t bothered with home automation in my own home. It is on my list of things that might be fun to play with – but not even close to the top. So while this is a nifty gee whiz feature, and it makes for a fun demo, I’m not sure it is going to sell boxes. It is cool, sure, but how many people not only have home automation, but have Z-Wave based systems, and not one of the competing technologies?

Part of the same system, and probably far more useful, is the ability to communicate with IP based devices such as IP enabled web cams. They had a demo with an IP enabled, remote controlled web cam. You could see the web cam’s video on the screen, and control it – pan/tilt, etc. Now that is something I could see being a lot more useful. Put security cameras around the house, parents can put one in the baby’s room, etc. I definitely can see this being useful, and it is one of the few things I really felt was both cool and useful, and made me wish TiVo did something like that. What would be even more cool is if it could record the camera’s feed based on some trigger, like a motion detector. Then you could setup exterior cameras and the video would be saved it anything triggered them, to review later.

So, overall, a decent job with some real high points, but also some show stopping faults in my opinion. Because of missing functionality like WishLists and video transfers, I could never switch to Moxi from TiVo, and it would be hard for me to recommend Moxi to anyone with the current implementation. As a ‘premium product’ (Have you noticed how much I’ve repeated that in this article? That’s no accident, it seems to be a Digeo mantra – I heard it over and over from the various reps in response to many questions) I’m disappointed by the missing features and some of the product design decisions – both functionality and appearance. I think there is a good foundation there to build on, and hopefully Digeo will continue to do so, but they have a ways to go to really compete head to head with TiVo. And TiVo won’t be sitting still either. The longer it takes to being these products to market, the higher the bar gets. And it isn’t just TiVo, Digeo is competing with the next generation of cable and satellite DVRs which are entering the market, or being shown at CES right now. Many of them will be deployed by the time Digeo ships product, and they are better than the last generation.

If they’re going to sell the product for a premium price, seemingly for more than a high-end TiVo, then they need to be more competitive on features. There was certainly a lot more steak this year than last, when it was all sizzle with nothing real to show, and that’s good to see. Competition is a good thing, it drives innovation, and right now I think Digeo is the only company with any chance of offering TiVo competition in the standalone DVR market. So I’d like to see them address some of these issues. I still think they should smash the Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR and the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR together and produce one top-notch box instead.

On a final note, I did get a little perturbed listening to one demo. Obviously Digeo knows they’re competing with TiVo, so they do a lot of “this is how we’re better than TiVo” bits in their demos. Which is fine, really. But if you’re going to do that, get your damn facts straight, OK? Key points:
- TiVo does, in fact, allow HD video to be transferred between units and is not limited to SD only.
- TiVo does, in fact, officially support eSATA expansion of the Series3 and TiVo HD and it is not only possible with a ‘hack’.
- The fact that the Moxi interface ‘wraps around’ (when you get to the bottom of a list and go down you wrap around to the top, etc) does not make it so much better than the TiVo UI because on a TiVo when you go all the way to the bottom of a long list then you have to go one by one all the way back to the top. Because, in fact, you don’t have to do that on a TiVo. Hit Advance ‘->|’ in most menus and it jumps to the last item on the list, hit it again and it jumps to the first item. And, of course, you can also page up/down one screen at a time, not item by item, using the Chan/Page button on the remote. (Why do you think it says ‘Page’? At least on the newer remotes.)

There were others, but those were the big three that really bugged me to over-hear and made me want to jump in. (I stopped myself on 2 & 3, I did blurt out something like ‘wrong’ on 1 before I could stop myself.)

Yes, items 1 & 2 were true, but have not been true for a while now since the software was updated. If you’re going to compare your products to the competition make sure you know what the competition does. Especially if you’re going to do it a little theatrically, in a “Oh, TiVo is so limiting” fashion. And Item 3 – those navigation steps have been in there for years, so no excuse there.

Also, if you’re going to stress how Moxi has certain shortcuts on the remote to major functions, as if that was a differentiator, you might want to be aware that TiVo has plenty of those too.

I used to do competitive engineering analysis in past jobs. I’d tear apart competing gear and produce ‘hit lists’ for sales and marketing – items to stress to show how our products were better, and, yes, areas to try to steer clear of where we might take a hit because they did something better. So I know how the game is played. Hell, if anyone from Digeo has a question on how, or if, TiVo does something, just contact me. I’ll give you an honest answer to the best of my knowledge, like I would anyone else. I’d rather see accurate information used than having bogus FUD spread around.

Again, I appreciate all the time the various Digeo reps in both locations spent running through the demos for me and answering my questions. I do feel a lot more positively about Moxi now that I’ve seen something ‘real’ on working hardware than I did when it was just plans and promises. I will certainly be watching to see how the products evolve and how they are received by the market, and I look forward to getting a look at how it has advanced, probably at CES 2009.

• Flickr: Photo viewing from the online service.
• Finetune: Music playback from your Finetune account.
• Accedo Broadband: Casual gaming – Sudoku, Texas Hold’em, etc.
• CloverLeaf: Informational content – weather, sports, news, etc. – for the Moxi SuperTicker feature.

I’ve only ever heard of Flickr before, but I’m not too surprised. Behind-the-scenes companies like Accedo and Cloverleaf probably don’t get their name out there that much. All four will be free services included on the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR, Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR and Moxi TV for PC. The Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR and Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR were shown at CES 2007 with a planned release of late 2007, but at this time all three products are slated for ‘later in 2008′ with no pricing announced. Though the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR has repeatedly been cited as having a $1,000 price tag, that may no longer be accurate.

The press release:

Digeo® Outlines Services Strategy; Announces Alliances with Flickr, Finetune, Accedo and CloverLeaf

New Services Further Enhance the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR Entertainment Experience

Las Vegas, Nevada — January 7, 2007 — Digeo, Inc., makers of the Emmy®-award winning Moxi® digital media recorder (DMR), and recipients of two CEA Innovations 2008 Design and Engineering Honoree awards today outlined its featured services strategy and subsequently announced alliances with four leading content providers: Flickr, Finetune, Accedo Broadband and CloverLeaf Digital LLC. These new services are the first of many anticipated content partners and illustrate how the Moxi Menu seamlessly aggregates and connects several different specialized services into one cohesive entertainment experience.

While other basic DMRs or media center PCs provide access to non-broadcast content and services via disparate virtual content “stores,” the Moxi Menu delivers a premium entertainment experience that integrates all content sources throughout the user interface, providing consumers with increased exposure and easy access to all available content. This approach has already proven successful for premium content offered on Moxi Media Centers deployed through cable operators. A 2006 Adelphia study demonstrated VOD usage by subscribers of the Moxi Media Center was more than triple that of ordinary digital-cable subscribers during a given month. The increase in VOD uptake is credited to the Moxi Menu’s unique seamless integration of VOD and PPV titles alongside regular programming throughout the guide.

“People are increasingly looking to the TV as a central source for entertainment,” said Mike Fidler, CEO of Digeo. “As the number of channels and Internet-based content delivery providers grow, consumers will seek out devices which make navigating the sea of content simple and intuitive, and we believe the Moxi HD DMR family will stand out as providing the best entertainment experience possible.”

Your Digital Life, All in One Place
Each content partner was chosen not only for its innovative approach to digital content, but for its overall commitment to ease of use and ability to aid consumer discovery and enjoyment of new content. For example, Digeo is collaborating with Flickr, one of the world’s largest online photo sharing communities, to allow users to easily link their Flickr accounts with the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR. This gives consumers easy access to any photo group associated with their Flickr account – including popular categories from the Flickr web community and photos uploaded from mobile devices — in the full HD resolution1 in their living room. Now, consumers can access photos streamed from their PC, stored on Moxi or shared on Flickr all from the Moxi Photos tab on the Moxi Menu.

Similarly, together with Finetune, a well-known music service, Digeo has extended the Moxi Music feature by making it possible for Finetune members to play their customized playlists or personalized stations from the Moxi Menu. Comprised of about two million tracks, Finetune also has one of the largest major and indie label libraries in the industry. Since its launch in September 2006, Finetune has already counted three-million unique listeners and 600,000 registered members, adding more than 60,000 new listeners each week. Now, Moxi users have convenient access to their entire MP3 music library, right from the Moxi Menu regardless of whether the music lives on the Moxi hard drive, their laptop or PC, or online at Finetune.

To bring HD casual gaming to the TV, Digeo is partnering with Accedo Broadband, which specializes in television-centric entertainment services. Casual gaming has grown dramatically in popularity over the past few years and is increasingly being embraced through the television medium. Moxi DMRs already offer classic games such as solitaire and poker, and with Accedo, Digeo will expand its offering to include additional HD games such as Sudoku, Texas Hold`em and QuizzMaster.

Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR will also have a host of new services for information junkies. In addition to the popular SuperTicker™ feature already in Moxi, CloverLeaf will take advantage of the new HD Moxi Menu to give users access to full-screen web-based content designed specifically for TV viewing. This includes news and sports from Associated Press, local weather content from AccuWeather, lottery results and other information such as horoscopes and movie listings through CloverLeaf’s DotDaily, an interactive television news and information portal. Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR users will be able to browse news by topic and region, or see the day’s news as a series of photos.

All four services will be available as free features in the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR, Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR and Moxi TV for PC products to become available later in 2008. Additionally, Digeo will showcase live demonstrations of all four services at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2008 in their booth #26606 in South Hall 2, as well as the Content@CES showcase in the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

About Digeo, Inc.
Digeo, Inc. creates state-of-the-art home entertainment technologies, including digital media recorder (DMR) platforms and services. The company’s mission is to enable the best consumer experience in high-definition entertainment for the connected home.

Digeo’s flagship product – the two-time Emmy® Award-winning Moxi Media Center – serves as a hub for whole-home distribution of digital entertainment and has been deployed in more than 400,000 homes by eight cable operators nationwide. A new line of Moxi-branded products, including Moxi TV for PC, Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR and the Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR will be available for consumer purchase in 2008. The company also licenses its technology to third-party companies as the user interface, application or customer connection portal to drive their products or services. Backed primarily by Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc., Digeo is based in Kirkland, Wash. For more information, please visit http://www.digeo.com. For a virtual demo of the Moxi Menu, please visit http://www.moxi.com.

About Accedo Broadband
Accedo is a leading provider of interactive and long-tail on-demand content and applications for IPTV and online consumer electronics. Accedo provides the largest available multi-platform portfolio of IPTV applications, Accedo Application Portfolioâ„¢, containing IPTV games, quizzes, puzzles, video art, comics, karaoke, weather, lifestyle, food and communication.

Accedo is a privately held company founded by telecom and media entrepreneurs Michael Lantz and Fredrik Andersson. Accedo has offices in Stockholm, London, San Francisco and Hong Kong.

Read more about Accedo on http://www.accedobroadband.com.

About CloverLeaf Digital LLC
CloverLeaf Digital is the leading independent provider of interactive TV walled garden portal services in the United States. Distributed in over 150 cities, CloverLeaf’s interactive network provides telephone companies, cable operators, and other distributors of digital video with the ability to offer on-demand localized news and information to their subscribers. CloverLeaf’s turnkey offering is optimized for the underlying TV platform, customized to meet the operator’s requirements, and localized for the communities in which it is distributed. (http://www.cloverleafdigital.com)

About Finetune
Finetune is the ultimate digital music service — two parts personal player, one part social network. Create your own playlists and discover new music through one of the largest online catalogs of licensed major and indie labels. Music you didn’t know you love is just seconds away through Finetune’s expert- and community-driven discovery engine. Never complicated and always free, Finetune comes with no strings attached. No downloads. No questionnaires. Lean back and listen, or sit up, spin and share. Just type in an artist and the experience begins – on your browser, on your desktop, on your blog, and beyond. What music do you love? http://www.finetune.com

About Flickr
Flickr is one of the world’s leading online photo sharing communities where people explore, find, manage and share pictures of life’s daily moments with friends, family and the world. With more than 40 million worldwide visitors each month and more than 2 billion photos stored, Flickr serves as the ‘eyes of the world’ and has revolutionized the sharing and discovery of what people see and experience through photos. Flickr was developed by Ludicorp in February 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in March 2005. To share and explore the world’s photos, visit http://www.flickr.com.

# # #

1 Photo resolution is dependent on source file.

Digeo, Moxi, and their respective logos are the trademarks of Digeo, Inc. Use of the trademarks and service marks of the National Television Academy (“NTA”), including the mark EMMY®, requires the prior express written permission of National Television Academy. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

For more information, media only:

Jodie Cadieux, Digeo, Inc., 425.896.6050, jodie.cadieux@digeo.com
Gaby Adam, OnPR, 425.454.6843, gabya@onpr.com

Also, it is fairly limited as an A/V receiver – you can’t connect other devices! From the specifications, these are the only A/V inputs listed:
# Stereo L/R Input (For future use.)
# S/PDIF Optical and Coaxial Input (For future use.)

So, someday, you may be able to connect some other audio device as input. But it isn’t going to handle your gaming console, or your Blu-ray or HD DVD player, or your old VCR, or anything else. So you’d still need another receiver if you have need for any device other than the Moxi.

I think most people who would consider a Moxi product would end up looking at the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR, which will support CableCARD. It also havs a built-in CD/DVD drive, and shares the same network media playback features. Though it lacks antenna support entirely, and doesn’t have a built-in receiver. Actually, I think the best thing Digeo could’ve done was to slam these two boxes together and produce one box with CableCARD *and* Antenna support (like the TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD), the optical drive, all the media features, and forget the built in receiver/amp stuff – or just have two models, one with, and one without. Instead users are going to have to choose between a box with full digital cable support, but no antenna or receiver features, and a box without full digital cable support, but with antenna and a built-in receiver. I’m not really sure that the optical drive is going to be a big deal. TiVo went down that road with the DVD burner models, and they weren’t huge sellers, ending up discontinued. And the Moxi isn’t a burner, just a CD/DVD player.

The ‘Multi-Room’ model will work with the Moxi Mate in other rooms – the Home Cinema model apparently doesn’t. The Moxi Mate is one of the things Digeo has that I would love to see TiVo add to their lineup. Instead of needing a full TiVo in each room, a thin client would be a nice addition.

Not that the Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR doesn’t seem to have issues itself. According to the requirements, you’ll need an M-Card for CableCARD. While availability of M-Cards is increasing, in many areas cable operators are still limited to S-Cards. And I believe FiOS does not support M-Card at all at this time. That could still be an issue when it hits the market in 2008.

But we’ve already heard about these two units a number of times. The real news is that they’re also recruiting beta testers for Moxi TV for PC. What’s that? Pretty much what it sounds like – Moxi is jumping into the increasingly PC-based DVR software market. This seems to be a trend for DVR vendors. First ReplayTV jumped out of the hardware market and into the PC software market – with apparently very little success. Then TiVo announced they will be entering the PC software market with partner Nero, likely in 2008. And now Digeo has unveiled Moxi software for the PC.

It does look like an interesting application. More than just a DVR application, it is a multi-media playback system for DVD, CD, and digital content on the PC, all with a Moxi interface. It does seem to have some major limitations – according to the features audio is only unencrypted MP3, video is only MPEG2, and photos are only JPEG. It also only runs on Windows XP – no Vista. And it only supports analog cable and analog antenna signals. That’s pretty limited by today’s standards. I really hope they expand those features to include digital sources (at least ATSC & Clear QAM, if not CableCARD) and more media formats (AAC, WMA, DivX/Xvid, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, WMV9/VC-1, GIF, PNG, etc.). Otherwise, I’d expect them to be as successful as ReplayTV’s PC software. I expect even TiVo to struggle in the PC crowded PC market, and they have major brand recognition working for them.

The other major feature I was looking for but did not fine is any mention of interoperability with their standalone hardware products – video transfers, etc. That oversight was a major blow for ReplayTV, I would hope that Moxi (and TiVo) would not make the same mistake.

With all that said, I’m a geek and I’d love to get my hands on these, so I did sign up for the betas – but I really don’t expect them to include me given the fairly harsh things I’ve said. I think competition is good, and I’d say Digeo is easily the company in the best position to give TiVo some competition in the 3rd party DVR market, but I just don’t think the currently planned products are the right designs for the market. I think the Multi-Room HD DMR is the strongest of the lineup, but it has a few issues I think they should correct before launch, and they should use the delay to do so. The Home Cinema HD DMR – I just don’t get. The Moxi TV for PC could be a good product if it doesn’t ship with the limitations currently indicated on the website.

I’m looking forward to a little Q&A with Digeo in their booth at CES next month.

While we are certainly disappointed about this, we want to make sure our first entry into the retail space is one that delivers the best consumer high-definition entertainment experience possible. We are really excited about the new developments we are building into the Moxi Menu and the advanced (dare I say bleeding edge?) hardware platforms we have chosen for both the Moxi Multi-Room and Moxi Home Cinema HD DMRs, but as you know, while using the latest and greatest technology means the consumer gets a more future-proofed product, it also requires a little more work.

I’m not surprised by this, it was becoming apparent that Digeo wasn’t going to ship in time for the holidays. Since CES in January there have only been a handful of updates, and overall the information released has been very light. Even at recent trade shows Digeo was still using the hollow mock-up units in their displays, and not real prototypes, let alone final products. (By contrast TiVo had a working prototype Series3 at CES 2005, and a fairly production representative unit at CES 2006, and the box shipped in late 2006.)

The ‘high end’ Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR, which is really a fancy name for a PC based on the AMD Live! reference platform running Linux-based Moxi software, never made sense to me – from the first time I saw it. As I said then:

Conversely, the AMD-based design will not support CableCARD. It will support antenna, analog cable, and probably clear QAM for unencrypted digital cable. (I had 2 reps tell me yes and one said no on clear QAM.) You’ll need an external cable box for anything else. I think not supporting CableCARD on what they’re positioning as the premium product of the two is just dumb. But it may be too much – it will be Linux based, and not Windows Vista, so maybe they just can’t work it out for CableLabs. But if you’re looking for a premium, PC-based product in that range, there will be a lot of Vista-based PCs with CableCARD to select from. I don’t think the Moxi features are really enough to sway a lot of people to give up native digital cable capabilities.

There are an increasing number of Vista-based Media Center PCs with CableCARD support, and, of course, the TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD now have TiVoToGo, and then you have the cable DVRs. Unless Digeo has changed their plans to incorporate CableCARD, I just don’t see this product selling. There just isn’t demand for an expensive media center PC with limited source options.

The more conventional ‘set top box’ style Moxi DMRs make more sense. Their Multi-Room support will be an interesting feature. But details on the actual hardware is still lacking – such as the size of the hard drive. Back in January rumors put the pricing as high as $1,000, but with no monthly fee (basically a bundled lifetime subscription). But that was when the TiVo Series3 was still selling for close to it’s MSRP of $800. Now the S3 is selling for ~$350 and the TiVo HD is out and selling for ~$250. While bundling the lifetime subscription is appealing, it will still result in higher pricing and potential sticker shock on the shelf. ReplayTV learned that lesson the hardware – twice. RTV launched with bundled lifetime and no monthly option, and got whipped by TiVo which sold their boxes for a lower price, and then sold lifetime or monthly subs (and yearly subs, back then) separately. So RTV revised their pricing to match TiVo. Then, a few years later, for reasons that remain inexplicable, they tried switching back to a bundled lifetime plan. That didn’t last long as it killed sales, and they reverted to the unbundled pricing. I don’t know why Digeo would do any better at retail with the Moxi boxes with bundled lifetime and a higher fee. Even if the overall cost is lower, the average consumer seems to balk at the higher upfront cost.

Based on what I saw at CES, and the little information that has appeared since, I think Digeo should forget the Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR (unless they can incorporate CableCARD support – even then it is iffy) and just focus on the Moxi Multi-Room DMR to get it out at a low price point. They should offer unbundled lifetime and monthly subscription options, and the box itself should be under $300. They plan to incorporate a DVD player in the box – at this point unless they have upscaling support and a solid DVD system, they should drop it. You can get great upscaling DVD players for ~$60, so a ‘premium’ product would be tarnished if it can’t provide the same capabilities.

Digeo could provide some competition for TiVo, but they need to bring a product to market first, and it needs to be priced competitively. And the longer they delay, the more time TiVo has to gain users and to lock in partnerships to give them an advantage – everything from Amazon Unbox to being able to schedule recordings from 3rd party sites like Zap2it.com. Digeo has a lot of work ahead of them if they’re going to compete, and they need to start soon.

Digeo is readying the launch of its Moxi digital media receivers (DMR) for what is expected to be a pre-holiday launch through select retailers across the country.

Really, nothing substantial has been revealed since the products were shown at CES back in January. If anything, the TWICE article makes it sound like Digeo has scaled back their launch plans:

Digeo will be looking to partner with A/V retailers that offer “an assisted selling environment in order to communicate all of the capabilities the product delivers,” [Michael Fidler, Digeo CEO] said.

“We have very modest goals for the product,” said Fidler. “We think it is establishing a new category. We know that TiVo has been out there with their product starting that, and this is a great new opportunity for retailers, who really haven’t participated in the cable industry at all, until the availability of a national umbrella [CableCARD] that allows this product to be sold in any retailer in the country [or] to any operator in the country.”

Digeo will look to build the Moxi brand mostly through online vehicles, Fidler said, although details of the launch campaign will be disclosed later.

Digeo will also supply a more basic box to be sold through retailers, Fidler said.

That sounds a lot more low-key than when I talked to them at CES. “Select retailers” and “mostly through online vehicles” – that doesn’t sound like they’re going to be widely available. The bit about partnering with retailers who do ‘assisted selling’ makes it sound like they’re going to be positioning this as more of a high-end boutique solution than something you’d see in the shelf in Best Buy. And while they’re happy to announce home control integration from 4HomeMedia they’re still not talking about basic features such as hard drive size or pricing. A year ago when the product was announced the price was set at “around $1000″ shipping in “fall 2007″ – they’ll certainly have to come in substantially below that to have decent sales in today’s market with the sub-$300 TiVo HD, or it really will be a small volume boutique item.

This bit makes me wonder:

All of Moxi’s retail-focused boxes will include a CableCARD slot that will accept multi-stream CableCARDs supplied by local operators.

Does that mean that the units will only have a single M-Card slot and will not be able to utilize two S-Cards, as the TiVo HD and Series3 can? Currently M-Card availability is still very spotty – my local Charter Digital outlet reports that they don’t have them at all yet, for example. Digeo could run into issues with M-Card availability in the near term if this is the case. Though, in the longer term, not having the second slot would decrease the component costs slightly.

I still think that, of all the vendors, Digeo has the best chance of competing with TiVo at retail based on their interface design and feature set. But they need to get a product on the market, at a competitive price, or it is all moot. I’d be happy to run a Moxi unit side-by-side with my Series3 to see how they compare.

Not that there is no news out of Digeo – just that it isn’t very meaningful. First, Digeo and Monster announced that they’re going to “explore joint product development opportunities”.

Digeo®, Inc., makers of the Emmy®-award winning Moxi® digital media recorder (DMR), and Monster, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-end cables, accessories and power conditioning products, today announced their efforts to explore joint product development opportunities to take advantage of the growing proliferation of IP-connected entertainment options and advance the simplicity and quality of premium entertainment experiences in the home.

Yes, that’s as vague and meaningless as it sounds. They’re talking to each other – like any other million pair of companies you could name. From the press release:“The companies are not announcing any specific collaborative products at this time.” So they issued a press release to announce that the two companies are discussing the possibility of working together. Wow. That’s meta-vaporware. I know I can be a cynic, but I really don’t take it as a good sign when a company feels the need to issue press releases about this kind of garbage.

On top of that, if they do work together, Monster is involved, which means it’ll be overpriced no matter what it may be. (As should be obvious, I’m not a fan of Monster Cable, specifically their pricing.)

Moving on to something with a little more meat, Digeo also announced a deal with 4HomeMedia to bring home control software to the Moxi platform. Digeo is licensing 4HomeMedia’s ControlPoint software and integrating it into the Moxi Menu interface so that you can control devices in your home from your sofa via the Moxi remote. Of course, the prerequisite is that you have a home automation system in place. As part of this effort, Digeo also joined the Z-Wave Alliance, a home control industry group.

As a geek, this is cool. It is geeky and would be a neat toy. But, putting aside the “Ooh, shiny” geek reaction for a moment, I don’t think this is a big deal. How many people have a home automation system? Right – even most geeks don’t have one. This is only going to be useful for people with not only a home automation system, but a compatible home automation system. And then only if they want a DVR, decide to go with Moxi, and want to control their home automation system from their sofa in the first place – probably dimming the lights and such for the most part. I just don’t see this boosting Moxi sales in any appreciable way – whenever they ship in the first place.

It just strikes me as weird that here we are in September, Digeo is exhibiting at CEDIA, they’ve claimed the boxes are shipping this year – but instead of announcing details on the boxes (little things like real specs, pricing, distribution plans, etc) we’re getting fluff releases like these. To paraphrase an ad from my youth – Digeo, where’s the beef?

The two press releases picked up via ZatzNotFunny.

Using DTCP (Digital Transmission Copy Protection)-protected secure links among consumer electronics devices, cable subscribers will be able to enjoy digital cable programming, including high-definition and VOD cable content, on consumer electronics devices and personal computers on digital home networks. The approval permits CableLabs licensees under DFAST, CHILA, and DCAS to protect pay-per-view and video-on-demand transmissions against unauthorized copying and unauthorized internet retransmission, while assuring consumers’ ability to record broadcast and subscription programming, in digital formats, for personal use.

So, you’d theoretically be able to move content from your digital cable DVR to a PC and thence to a hand held device. Or between DVRs in the home, etc. Well, that sounds a lot like TiVoToGo and TiVo’s Multi-Room Viewing, doesn’t it? TiVo has said they expect to bring TTG & MRV to the Series3 and TiVo HD later this year, and they’re digital cable devices. TiVo almost certainly was aware of this standard being worked on. I wonder if they’re implementing DTCP-IP on the Series3 platform, which is why they’ll be able to bring TTG & MRV to market. Interesting question, no?

DTCP-IP is an extension of the previous DTCP standard for protecting content on FireWire links, also known as ’5C’ encryption. This is used on cable boxes for protecting content on the FireWire port, which is what prevents PCs from capturing some of that content. As a minor point, Digeo has been planning to use FireWire over Coax to connect Moxi units within the home, and they told me they had no plans to support Ethernet or WiFi. The reason they gave me back at CES was that FireWire was the only protocol CableLabs permitted the protected content to be transferred over. Well, that seems to have changed – I wonder if they’ll stick with the oddball FireWire over Coax solution or if they’ll embraced standard networking protocols.

Spotted via GigaOM.

Dave has doubts about the Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR which pretty much match my own. It is basically an (expected to be expensive) AMD Live! Media Center PC running Linux, with no CableCARD support. Considering there are multiple Windows-based Media Center PCs on the market now with CableCARD, and more coming, I don’t see why anyone with the scratch to afford a high-end media center PC would opt for one that can’t natively tune encrypted digital cable. Since most HD digital cable channels are encrypted, that rather limits the usefulness. If you’re happy with using an antenna and/or limiting your cable to analog and in-the-clear QAM, I guess it works – but how many people buying high-end gear fit that description? I suspect not many.

The Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR sounds just like what was being shown at CES. The closest comparison would be the TiVo Series3. Like the S3, this is a dual-tuner CableCARD DVR. Unlike the S3 it is cable-only, no antenna support. Dave mentions that it is designed to use M-Card, so that one CableCARD will enabled both tuners. M-Card is just rolling out now, with most areas still issuing S-Card. (For example, I’ve asked and my local Charter system doesn’t have *any* M-Cards at this time, still 100% S-Card.) If the unit really does only have one slot, and cannot use two S-Cards like the S3, I hope that cable MSOs are fully on the M-Card bandwagon by the time this rolls out. There is a good chance they will be, especially now as they need to use CableCARD in their own boxes, as of July 1st.

The biggest difference compared to the S3 is that the Moxi is designed to support viewing from multiple rooms via a ‘Moxi Mate’ client box. Digeo is using a FireWire-over-coax system to connect Moxi Mate units to the main unit using the existing cable runs. This is fine if you have cable linking the different locations, but not so great if your don’t. And this is intended to be the only method of linking the locations – no Ethernet or WiFi. Still, if you have the cabling, it is a nice system. You can access pretty much anything on the primary Moxi from the Moxi Mate.

The other key difference is that the Moxi has a built-in CD/DVD drive. It can be used as your DVD player – no word on if it does upscaling and such, so you don’t need another box. It can also play CDs, and it will rip CDs to the internal drive for later playback, including via the Moxi Mate. Personally I’d never use that, I rip all my music on my PC in iTunes and store it there – I wouldn’t want music using up my DVR’s drive capacity. And if it is still like it was shown at CES, the settings are fixed – there is no way to adjust the bit rate, rip to other formats (like AAC), etc. Fortunately the Moxi also streams music and photos from PCs on the network, similar to TiVo’s functionality. The Moxi has an Ethernet port, but no support for WiFi. For WiFi it looks like you’ll need an external WiFi bridge, or something like a WiFi gaming adapter.

The built-in CD/DVD capability could be nice, it it certainly adds cost to the unit. I really wonder if it is worth it. Most homes already have at least one DVD player, often more than one. And there are very cheap, yet good, DVD players available that do full upscaling. Considering it is built into a high-end, HD DVR, it had better be a very good DVD player with all the bells and whistles. Of course, the market most likely to spend top dollar on an HD DVR is the same market most likely to buy Blu-ray or HD DVD. I think Digeo might be better off leaving out the CD/DVD capability and bringing the price down instead. Unlike TiVo’s past DVD systems, the Moxi is just a player, not a burner. So you can’t transfer recordings to DVD.

Dave has a number of screen shots in his post, which look pretty much the same as I saw at CES in January, maybe refreshed a little. Some people prefer Moxi’s UI look and feel as being more ‘clean’ than TiVo, and I can see that. TiVo’s UI does feel a little dated, it hasn’t really changed since 1999. It still works, but I did rather like the changes in the OCAP software TiVo was showing at CES. It still felt like TiVo, but more modern. It would be nice to see that refresh applied to the standalone boxes too.

If Digeo delivers on their promises, I think the Moxi boxes will be fairly decent technologically. But I’m still not sure they can carve out a significant niche in the market at this point, especially if the rumored prices (around $1,000) are true. Even with a $800 MSRP, and an effective $600 street price, the TiVo Series3 is felt to be too expensive. Back at CES, Digeo said they would sell the box with no subscription. That would certainly make a high price a better value. $1,000 for a box with nothing more to buy is more attractive than $1,000 plus a subscription fee.

But one thing TiVo and ReplayTV showed the world is that people balk at high up-front prices. The market preferred lower purchase pricing with service fees. When ReplayTV tried to sell ‘all-in-one’ and TiVo offered a monthly option, TiVo ate their lunch – even though a TiVo with lifetime cost the same as a ReplayTV, which included lifetime. And, later, when TiVo tested lower hardware pricing with the option for a higher monthly fee, more people opted for the bundles than the higher up-front costs with a lower monthly fee. So relying on a higher up-front fee has some risks. And Digeo also said that additional features would be sold a la carte, so they’ll have some ability to generate additional revenue.

Also, TiVo has a new, lower-priced HD box due this fall. And the pricing on the current S3 is generally expected to drop when the new box is launched. So Digeo will be up against a couple of TiVo models with lower price points – is the Moxi Mate and a CD/DVD drive enough to justify a higher price? What if TiVo gets MRV and TTG working on the S3?

It should be interesting. I hope Digeo starts talking about details soon – pricing, service plans, hard drive capacity, etc. I think they need to have this out in September at the latest, to catch the holiday shopping season. That’s not that far off now.

I’d be happy to get a Moxi and set it up alongside my S3 and use them both, to see how they really stack up. I have long said that I felt Moxi was the best potential competition for TiVo, especially after ReplayTV imploded. But I suspect I’m not high on Digeo’s reviewer list.

It is really going to come down to what the final specifications and features are, and what the pricing ends up being. They’re going to be up against not just TiVo – who will likely have their lower-cost HD box out by the the time the Moxi units street – but also the cable and satellite DVRs. And probably TiVo’s cable software.

I still think Digeo/Moxi made a big mistake years ago when they pulled back from a consumer launch and decided to focus solely on licensing to cable MSOs, and effort which was largely a failure. With only roughly 420,000 users in about 100 markets after a few years, it can’t really be considered much of a success. And one of their partners is Comcast, who later turned to TiVo for their future needs. I think they could’ve been a contender at the time, along with TiVo and ReplayTV, but I’m not sure they can carve out a niche in the current market environment.

Kircos added that Intel’s agreement with CableLabs on OpenCable concerns only the chip family for CE devices it plans to introduce in 2008, “not a PC play per se, nor for our Core or Pentium processors at this point.”

I actually think this is more an issue of Intel being a large corporation with their fingers in several pies than a real reversal. Intel would still like to see a two-way standard that allows CE devices to access two-way cable services (SDV, VOD, etc) without the hefty overhead of supporting OCAP. However, at the same time, there is a market for chips that are going into the new generation of cable set top box and other devices which *will* support OCAP, and Intel wasn’t willing to cede the market to the competition over OCAP.

In another development, Microsoft and CableLabs have extended their partnership with a formal collaborative effort to develop ways for two-way cable services to function on PCs. It isn’t clear if this means embedding OCAP in Windows or developing an alternative system. I’d be a bit shocked if it is the former. OCAP is Java-based – and MS has a deep hatred for Java. The primary reason MS backs HD DVD over Blu-ray is that HD DVD uses iHD (developed my Microsoft and Toshiba) for interactive features while Blu-ray uses BD-Java – which is itself derived from the same MHP/GEM standards that OCAP was derived from, and hence related in a way. I just don’t see Microsoft grinning and paying for a Java license to embed Java in every copy of Windows MCE, not after the past acrimony over their JVM, etc. But I suppose stranger things have happened.

OCAP is running far behind schedule. It was originally anticipated to be widely deployed by the end of 2006, now the cable industry is claiming it will be widely deployed by the end of 2008. Delays in getting the OCAP infrastructure in place had cascaded to a number of delays, including delays in getting TiVo’s new OCAP-based software out for Comcast and Cox.

The majority of the CE industry has shunned OpenCable mainly due to the OCAP requirement. Adding support for OCAP increases the costs and complexity of their products and, at the same time, impacts their software design as features utilizing OCAP will run cable software and not the CE vendor’s own UI. This doesn’t sit well with the industry.

There have been some notable exceptions. Panasonic, LG, and Samsung have all licensed OCAP and are producing OCAP-compliant devices. It isn’t too surprising, as these companies product cable products for other countries. Until now, the US market was dominated by Motorola and Scientific Atlanta, and it was nearly impossible for a 3rd party to break in. Cable companies used Motorola head-end systems with Motorola STBs, or SA with SA. Now with CableCARD and OCAP, it is easier for 3rd parties to enter the market. Panasonic and Samsung are already making cable boxes for US Cable MSOs, utilizing CableCARD. Samsung is testing OCAP televisions with Time Warner.

If you’re making a cable STB, then OCAP isn’t a big issue. That’s the way the industry is going and Motorola and SA are supporting OCAP on their products, so competitors will do the same. OCAP is based on the MHP/GEM standards used in STBs around the world, so supporting OCAP isn’t a big leap for vendors already making STBs in other countries.

If you’re making high-end TVs it isn’t so bad either. The cost can be absorbed, and since the TV didn’t really have much in the way of interactivity and advanced features, there isn’t a conflict between OCAP and the CE vendors own software and UI. So LG and Samsung testing the waters for OCAP TVs isn’t a big surprise.

However, if you produce more advanced products, like TiVo or Digeo, then yielding control to OCAP is a big deal. And cost is an issue for most CE products, with the cost of supporting OCAP being non-negligible – both in the added hardware and in the required licenses. Which is why CE vendors really want a simple, basic way to handle two-way features without all of the baggage of OCAP. OCAP is pretty hefty, and a lot more than is needed to handle simple tasks like SDV or ordering VOD.

There could possibly be some progress on this front this week, as the FCC is holding an open meeting in Portland, ME to discuss the issue, amongst other agenda items.

Digeo is also working on porting the Moxi platform to OCAP, just as TiVo has done with the TiVo platform. It may be ready as early as Q4. It remains to be seen how well Digeo does with the new effort. The existing Moxi platform has been available to cable MSOs for several years, but is only deployed to 400,000 customers with eight cable MSOs. Moxi is going to have to offer some real advantages to MSOs to land more licensing deals. If an MSO is going to license software beyond the default vendor DVR platforms, TiVo brings a lot of brand recognition and features as an option. And their software is already being deployed in tests by Comcast. Even if Moxi has OCAP code in Q4, by then TiVo’s software should be widely deployed by Comcast and started deployment by Cox. Though I could see Digeo/Moxi being acquired by the likes of Motorola or Cisco/Scientific Atlanta to become the ‘default’ software.

I picked this up from PVR Wire @ TV Squad.

First off, they’re planned to be available in the latter half of the year, likely late in the year. Right now they’re vapor – all of the boxes in their booth were empty plastic shells with some fixed LEDs to make them pretty. The back of the box was completely smooth, no connectors. It was completely smoke and mirrors, with machines running the demos hidden away. I was told that most of the specs are still up in the air – hard drive size, final appearance, software feature set, etc. So there isn’t a lot of hard data today. The interface is the same as the one they currently have in the field on approximately 400,000 cable boxes. Some people like it, some don’t. Personally I really prefer the TiVo interface design. But I know UI is something that people will forever disagree on, so be it.

There will be two units – one CableCARD device and one based on AMD’s Live! reference platform. The CableCARD device will support unidirectional CableCARD 1.0 & M-Card, like the TiVo Series3, and NOT CableCARD 2.0 as some sites had previously reported. It will also be *cable only* – no antenna support. In fact, one of the Moxi people I spoke to was convinced the Series3 didn’t do antenna either, until I corrected him. Conversely, the AMD-based design will not support CableCARD. It will support antenna, analog cable, and probably clear QAM for unencrypted digital cable. (I had 2 reps tell me yes and one said no on clear QAM.) You’ll need an external cable box for anything else. I think not supporting CableCARD on what they’re positioning as the premium product of the two is just dumb. But it may be too much – it will be Linux based, and not Windows Vista, so maybe they just can’t work it out for CableLabs. But if you’re looking for a premium, PC-based product in that range, there will be a lot of Vista-based PCs with CableCARD to select from. I don’t think the Moxi features are really enough to sway a lot of people to give up native digital cable capabilities.

The demos had OnDemand, but without CC2.0 it can’t do that, so I asked about it. Their plan is to provide broadband video on demand, and Digeo is working on establishing partnerships to provide that, but don’t have any in place at this time. They have PC connectivity, but only to access music and photos off a PC. No one was sure what audio formats would be supported in the end, other than MP3. There is no capability to move video to or from a PC, let alone a portable device. They’ve demo’d conversion for a PSP in the past, on the box, but it was just a demo and today I was told there aren’t firm plans to include it in the product.

The CableCARD box also has a CD/DVD drive, and by default it automatically rips any CDs loaded to the internal drive. However, the rip settings are fixed. There is no way to adjust the bit rate, etc. And now you have music using some of your drive. I really think TiVo’s system of playing it over the network is the better way to go. They do plan to support external storage expansion via USB 2.0 drives. They say that they won’t have any trouble getting approval for that, though we’ll just have to see. CableLabs is holding up TiVo’s eSATA support. Digeo pointed out that they can do it today in cable boxes – but some cable operators also have eSATA working today. Apples and oranges, the rules for CableCARD aren’t the same as integrated STBs. I wish them luck – if they get approved, and TiVo hasn’t been yet, it should help TiVo’s case.

There are two planned models of the CableCARD box – one dual-tuner, the other quad-tuner. It isn’t clear, but since M-Card is supposed to enable up to 5 streams, it should be possible to use one M-Card for four tuners. Why so many tuners? Well, the one thing they have that I wish TiVo had, is multi-room support via client boxes. There will be small boxes for other rooms which don’t have drives, tuners, etc. Just output connections and a coax connection. These client boxes can talk to a master unit and access any of the content on the box. Multiple clients can even simultaneously access the same program. And, if there is a tuner free, a client can watch ‘live’ TV by using the tuner in the master. Even the DVD is shared, though only one client at a time can access the DVD. However, networking is via FireWire over coax, only. So you need to have coaxial cable to any site where you want to use a client. This is meant to make it easier to setup by using existing cable from cable TV, but not everyone has a convenient coax drop. I asked directly and was told that networking over Cat5 or wireless would *not* be supported for this sharing, nor Moca. It will only be FireWire over coax. I was told that have about 30,000 of these client boxes in use today, with their cable customer base.

They wouldn’t discuss pricing, except to say ‘competitive’. One that that should help them is that, starting in July, cable MSOs must begin using CableCARD on their own cable boxes. Any new boxes they deploy need to use CableCARD for security, instead of being integrated. Moxi is planning to sell the same hardware to cable MSOs as they sell in retail, and if they do land any MSO sales it would help spread out the manufacturing costs to keep pricing down. However, to date they have not been very successful at moving into the cable market. After several years they have the aforementioned 400,000 users, which is why they’re trying retail now. With Comcast and Cox stating they plan to bring the TiVo interface to all of their DVRs, it is going to limit their potential client base. Oh, they did say something more specific about pricing. There won’t be any monthly fee for the DVR functionality, just an upfront purchase. But other features will be ala carte. You want OnDemand? Pay for it. You want to play a game? Pay for it. You want music? Pay for it. So they’ll be looking to up-sell these features to users.

I think Digeo/Moxi should’ve done this (trying retail) years ago, when they were starting up. That was their plan, and they had some very nice features, but then they changed plans and decided to stake everything on licensing to cable MSOs. That hasn’t worked out well for them, and now TiVo has entered that market with two major deals and overwhelming brand recognition. And TiVo’s new OCAP implementation should be portable to other systems, whereas Moxi is looking to sell specific hardware.

The best thing they have going is the multi-room system. It is certainly better than TiVo’s MRV system – it is fully interactive streaming – but I don’t like being limited to coax networking. Some people do like the Moxi interface, so that’s what it is. Integrated support for CD/DVD is nice – thought it isn’t a burner, just a player. At least on the CableCARD box, final specs on the AMD Live! box are set but I’d expect a burner there.

So, overall, I wasn’t impressed with that they were pitching. It won’t be a bad product, if they deliver what they promise, but by late 2007 I believe TiVo will have a number of additional features for the Series3, and the price will have come down quite a bit. And the Comcast and Cox software roll-outs should be well along. So Digeo is going to face an up-hill battle to gain market share for Moxi.