1. "Battlestar Galactica" (59.4)
2. "Mad Men" (57.7)
3. "Damages" (56.3)
4. "Rescue Me" (53.2)
5.(tie) "True Blood" (46.9)
5.(tie) "Stargate Universe" (46.9)
7.(tie) "Sanctuary" (45.9)
7.(tie) "Heroes" (45.9)
9. "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (45.5)
10.(tie) "10 Things I Hate About You" (44.9)
10.(tie) "Dollhouse" (44.9)
10.(tie) "Melrose Place" (44.9)

Other than a couple of tween-driven clunkers at the bottom of the list—and the people who forgot to take "Heroes" off their DVR in 2007—this is a comprehensive list of some of the best, least watched TV of the year. Which makes sense, given the way the ratings are structured. A million people DVRing "Mad Men" is going to make a much bigger difference to that show's time-shifted rating than a million people DVRing "American Idol." So what you're left with is essentially ten shows with passionate, technologically savvy fan bases. Though it looks like in a couple of these cases, not quite passionate enough to save the show from extinction. Sorry, "Dollhouse." I should've done more to spread the word. [NY Times]

The regulator is seeking comments "on how to encourage innovation," which basically means how to move past the total failure of the CableCARD system and on to something that will democratize how and where you can access cable video streams. If you're never heard about the CableCARD system, it's effectively the only thing keeping you from using your Xbox 360 as a DVR. A potential change could
open up cable signals to all devices, including your TiVo and Xbox 360.

And until very recently, you couldn't even get your Windows PC to be a DVR unless you bought it OEM from HP or Dell or someone, where they would install the CableCARD for you at the time of purchase. Quite opposite from the way people pictured CableCARDs would work—and how it will work shortly.

Just how bad is it? Ars Technica points out that in the FCC report, a grand total of fourteen non-leased set top boxes were available in the US at retail in 2008. That means that nearly every set-top box in the US is leased by a cable company, allowing them virtually unlimited pricing control and no incentive to innovate. Compare that to the 879 devices for sale in the truly competitive mobile industry, and you can see just how throttled the market is by the cable industry.

There's no telling what exactly is going to happen here, but at the very least it's good to see the FCC continuing their push for openness and sanity. We've waited long enough for something that's really not too much to ask. [ars technica]

As it turns out, Xfinity is just a rebranding of TV Everywhere—a free service that allows you to play your tv content on up to three authenticated internet devices. We already knew that would be rolling out in December, but Zats has specified an exact date of December 12th.

As for remote DVR scheduling, details are a little hazier. Comcast has "promised" that the feature is on the horizon, but no specific dates have been announced. [Zats]

The typical TiVo user is a person who just wants their TV recordings to work, regardless of the monthly fee. They may or may not be tech savvy, but chances are TiVo was their first DVR—since we've found, anecdotally, people gravitate back to the first DVR interface they use. So why is their marketshare down to 2004 levels? The answer is simple: cheap DVRs from providers are eating TiVo from the low end, and everyone else can now use Windows 7 and a tuner to act as a DVR just fine.

Cheap DVRs from Comcast, or Time Warner or your satellite provider have gotten good—or rather, less shitty—enough to make them actually viable options for home recording. Even I couldn't turn down only paying an extra $5 per month to have a recorder that works well enough to watch stuff with, even if you don't have show recommendations, and fast forwarding barely functions well enough to stop where you want. But it's $5. $5. Five. Dollars. And that's without having to pay upfront for the box. You can rent three of these for the price of one TiVo subscription.

As for the big reason why you don't need a TiVo anymore, in the future, you can thank Microsoft and Windows 7. Just take a look at that Windows 7 PC you have. Yeah, the one in your office. That can be your DVR. CableLabs finally took off their ridiculous OEM restriction on who can install CableCARD tuners—the device that actually takes a digital cable signal and turns it into something your computer can understand and record—so you can go and get one of these yourself for about $200. So for $200, with no future fees except for your normal cable bill, you can have yourself a home DVR that's arguably as good as TiVo. And, much easier to expand and augment, both storage and functionality-wise, than a set top box.

And if you don't want a computer in your living room (you need that thing in your office anyway), all you have to do is get an Xbox 360 and extend it. Multiple Xboxes mean streaming to multiple rooms, something that's not even possible on a TiVo.

Of course there's going to be a core group of TiVo users who really enjoy TiVo functionality, really appreciate their interface and can't imagine using something else. But is that enough to sustain a business when so many other options are cheaper and just as good? The numbers say no.

In case you forgot, Sezmi plans to roll up live broadcast and cable TV along with web videos, on demand-movies and DVR functionality in a single, easy to navigate set-top box. Needless to say, this is a tall order, and most of us probably relegated Sezmi to the vaporware bin. However, trials of the product have begun in LA and a $25 million cash infusion from investors has given the project new life. In fact, it seems that Sezmi spent the last year working out deals with the likes of Sony Pictures, MGM Studios, Paramount Studios, Warner Brothers, Lion's Gate Entertainment and Universal Studios for on demand streaming, and ABC, CBS, CW, FOX, NBC, Turner, MTV Networks Discovery Channel, Telemundo and Univision for TV content.

Sezmi plans to offer a tiered pricing plan that starts with Sezmi Select, the entry tier, which will offer all local channels (in SD and HD) as well as access to on-demand content for $4.99 per month. Sezmi Supreme will include cable and local channels for $24.99 per month.

If you are interested in participating in the trial, you can apply for the LA pilot here. If you are lucky enough to get in, the equipment and the service will be free of charge for three months, after which you will be offered a discounted price on the DVR and tuners which normally runs $300. [Sezmi via Variety and Zats]

I like how they justify it:

There is time date stamp for the record, you can get the most authentic evidence for a variety of illegal behaviour. Ideal for CIA agents, police, detector, and spy agency.

That sounds about right, because we all know that CIA agents shop in Chinese crapware sites. The $243 Pinhole Spy Toothbrush Hidden Camera DVR records 640x480 video in AVI format, using its internal 8GB flash memory. According to their product site, it looks exactly like a real electric toothbrush. It also looks like a whole bag of hurt to me. [Omejo]

Well, at least not in Roaming Navigation view.

Instead, the shows are grouped by relationship—common threads like genre, title, and hours of original play. The more overlapping qualities, the closer the thumbnails are sorted to one another.

At first, the idea of sorting by title similarity sounds a bit ridiculous, but for those who watch CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI:NY, CSI:Indianapolis, and CSI:Millersburg, OH, it's probably pretty handy—especially if they watch Law & Order, too. [Tech-On]

TiVo's approach here is direct and clear: This is a basic scheduling app, for searching for, reading about, and marking content for recording, in situations when you can't get to a computer—though a good mobile app can keep a lot of people away of TiVo's TV interface for good. It'll work with Series2 or Series3 standalone TiVos, and BlackBerrys running OS 4.2.0 or later, and should be available in App World starting this morning. [TiVo]

But first, the extender: The Moxi Mate is a small $399 ($199 for now, if purchased in a bundle or by an existing Moxi HD customer) satellite box that plays back recordings from your Moxi HD from afar, over your home network. It's not all that feature-rich—no wi-fi built in, no scheduling of recordings, no support for more than one Moxi Mate at a time—but if your goal is to stream your Moxi library around the house, at least you now have a way to do it.

About that library. Although the hardware on the main box hasn't changed, Moxi's software update, which should push out tonight, gives your box the gumption it needs to take onboard much larger drives via the e-SATA port, as well as a new optional browsing interface called Grid Guide, which gives users a more familiar, cable-guide-like experience than Moxi's novel—but good—regular UI. Another, smaller update is Switched Digital Video support by way of an adapter, if your cable company's into that kind of thing.

At any rate, the core offering may have grown an extender, but it hasn't really changed. The whole system has the same strengths—a strong interface, good performance, and clear superiority over cableco boxes—as well as the same weaknesses—dependency on PlayOn for online streaming, the learning curve— so unless Moxi Mate tips the scales for you, or you've got $1000+ to drop on storage to build an absurdly large video bank, your current impressions probably still stand. [Moxi]

Much like the offering from DirecTV, U-Verse subscribers can browse through channels and set recordings to their home DVR. You can also search with filters and even look up shows by your favorite actors. Seriously, these apps are great for TV buffs, and since it's free there is no excuse not to check it out. [iTunes]

New iPhone and iPod touch Application From AT&T Lets Customers Schedule U-verse TV DVR Recordings On The Go

DALLAS, June 25, 2009 - AT&T U-verseSM TV customers can now use a free application from the Apple App Store to make scheduling and managing recordings on their DVR even easier when they're away from home. The U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App for iPhone and iPod touch lets customers record their content from virtually anywhere and is another example of U-verse TV applications and DVR enhancements that have been rolled out to customers at no extra charge.

"This is the perfect example of how AT&T is bringing services together to deliver a better experience for customers," said Jeff Weber, vice president of video services for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "With AT&T U-verse, you get DVR capabilities you can't find from any other provider, and this app gives users the freedom to schedule their DVR from their iPhone or iPod touch."

The app allows users to easily search U-verse TV program listings from the full program guide, view descriptions of selected programs, schedule program or series recordings, manage or edit scheduled recordings, and delete stored DVR content.

The Mobile Remote Access App is available for free from Apple's App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

The launch of the new U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App follows several DVR enhancements that are currently being rolled out to U-verse TV customers, including an exclusive new Total Home DVR feature that allows customers to schedule and delete recordings from any U-verse receiver in the home - all from a single DVR.

AT&T U-verse was one of the first providers to introduce Web Remote Access to the DVR in November 2006, and it brought three-screen DVR access to all U-verse TV customers with Mobile Remote Access to the DVR in April 2007. In 2008, AT&T launched AT&T U-verse Total Home DVR, allowing all U-verse DVR customers to watch standard and High Definition recorded shows from a single DVR on any connected TV in the home.

U-verse TV customers can also enjoy several other integrated applications, including personalized, on-screen weather, sports, traffic and stock information via AT&T U-bar; local and national weather forecasts with Weather On Demand; the ability to view personal photos on your TV that you have uploaded to flickr.com; and more.

AT&T U-verse customers enjoy quadruple-play integration, enhanced features and greater value, all made possible by IP technology. AT&T U-verse TV ranked "Highest in Residential Television Service Satisfaction in the North Central, South, and West Regions," according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Residential Television Service Provider Satisfaction StudySM.

Because Dish was ordered to pay royalties to TiVo for violating their patent on technology that allows viewers to record and play back video at the same time, TiVo now has major leverage that all but forces other cable providers to do business. Naturally TWC, the nation's second largest cable provider, is top on their target list—and they are said to be in the midst of discussions. Because getting around the patent is no easy task, it seems likely that TiVo will see its market share grow by leaps and bounds in the years to come. [Bloomberg / Image via Jake Ludington]

Both of these wireless media players can stream 1080p media from the network to your TV and upscale standard def movies to 1080i. They also come with either 500GB or 1TB of internal storage. However, the Record has added DVR capability for anyone looking to ditch the set top box altogether. Exact pricing and a release date has not been made available, but it appears that prices will start at $430.

LaCie Enhances the LaCinema Black Series:
LaCinema Black PLAY and RECORD

* Easy-to-use wireless HD media players

* Play HD movies, photos, and music on your HDTV

* Access digital content on your home network

* Control your TV experience: play, pause and record

Image Bank | Product Page

Today LaCie announced the latest products to expand their range of Wireless HD media players – LaCinema Black PLAY and LaCinema Black RECORD, Design by Neil Poulton. The new LaCinema Black products are built to optimize how consumers access and play content right from their HDTV.

Access all your media
LaCinema Black PLAY and RECORD provide the latest in home networking capabilities. Users can choose from a direct network connection, or use the built-in Wi-Fi connection, making it easy to store music, movies and photos from any computer on the local network. A built-in UPnP client player makes it fast and easy for users to access media content from a networked PC or Mac from anywhere in the home.

Built for High Definition
Designed with High Definition in mind, LaCinema Black PLAY and RECORD allow users to watch downloaded HD movies and television programs directly on the television. Promoting a greater use of HDTVs, these new products are capable of decoding 1080p resolution movies, HD JPEG photos and 1080i upscaling of Standard Definition movies. Consumers can enjoy movies with more detail, clarity and sharpness, making the LaCinema Black products a vital part of their viewing and entertainment experience. Users can even enable surround sound through the optical audio output.

LaCinema Black RECORD features Digital Video Recorder (DVR) technology, which allows users to record, pause, and rewind their favorite TV shows with the support of a connected set-top box or cable converter.

"Now that families are beginning to consume masses of digital content, they need a multimedia device that will allow them to easily store and play their favorite content right from their existing home entertainment center," said Patrick Salin, LaCie Multimedia Business Unit Manager. "With LaCinema Black products, users can access media over their network, listen to music, sort photos, record TV programs, and ultimately get the desired experience from their media collection – all from one product."

Easy use for the entire family
With the help of an intuitive user interface, families can easily browse their media, creating photo slideshows or music playlists with the touch of a button. LaCinema Black products also come with a parental control feature to password-protect files, allowing parents to centralize and secure their multimedia content with confidence.

The LaCinema Black PLAY and RECORD are available starting at 500GB* and support a broad variety of file formatting options. They are capable of storing up to 710 movies, 165,000 songs, 500,000 photos, or 250 hours of recording**. USB ports for peripherals allow users to expand capacity, or store their photos and videos by directly connecting video and digital cameras.

Availability
The LaCinema Black is available through the LaCie Online Store or LaCie resellers at the suggested retail price starting at $429.99. For more product information, visit www.lacie.com.

[LaCie]

TiVo
For a long while, TiVo was the undisputed king of TV recording. Other DVRs have come a long way in the last ten years, but they're all late to the party, and still playing catchup: The TiVo name is now permanently tattooed into the public's consciousness, synonymous with recording shows and backed up by still-impressive hardware.

But the fact that TiVo has attained a near-Kleenex level of brand recognition in the US doesn't mean a thing overseas. As of writing, the service is only available in a few other places—Canada, the UK, Mexico, Taiwan and Australia—where it has been met with limited enthusiasm. While the US, with its huge, old, fragmented cable industry, offers a fantastic opportunity for a meta-service like TiVo, smaller countries with one or two dominant pay-TV providers—which have their own increasingly formidable DVR alternatives—are tougher nuts to crack.

The Kindle
This choice might seem odd—or at least inconsequential—on account of the steady stream of new e-reader hardware available all over the world, but Kindle exclusivity is actually a technological feather in America's cap. Why? Because the source of the Kindle's importance isn't its hardware, but its connectivity and the service it's tied to.

Anyone can slap a case around a panel of E-Ink and add an off-the-shelf Linux OS—and plenty of companies have. But being linked wirelessly to a massive library of legal downloads, bestselling books, magazines and newspapers, is what will make a reader great. For now, the only mainstream reader that can claim such a feature is the Kindle, and the only country that can claim the Kindle is the US. Not that it can't go global—similar services for music and TV, like the iTunes store, have found ways to deal with tricky licensing and gone global—it's just that it probably won't for a while.

Push-to-Talk
Without a doubt, this is the technology that feels the most American on this list. Intended primarily for the workplace, push-to-talk technology has tragically seeped into the mainstream, subjecting millions of innocent mall shoppers to that incessant, inane chirping, and the shouting at the handset that accompanies it. Who hasn't been inadvertently pulled into the middle of a heated, long-distance argument about novelty Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches flavors while waiting in line at Walmart? Well, pretty much anyone who doesn't live in America—and not just because they don't have Jimmy Dean, or Walmart.

As it turns out, PTT's Amerophilia can be explained by little more than poor marketing. According to ABI Research:

In other world regions MNOs have failed to market PTT successfully to business users or have opted to market to consumers, and it just hasn't taken off.

Nextel, which was inherently crippled by a proprietary network technology that wasn't built out in any other country but the US, found success with PTT by pitching handsets to businesses as turbocharged Walkie-Talkies, not by marketing them directly to consumers, most of whom would have trouble imagining a more efficient way to make themselves look like brash assholes.

Video On Demand
iTunes has gone worldwide and services like BBC's iPlayer have brought the Hulu model overseas, but America still has the best VOD situation in the world, bar none. The problem is simple: Even countries with a healthy entertainment industry import a tremendous amount of American TV, often well after it was originally broadcast. This regional disparity seems kinda stupid in the age of the internet and VOD, but it's just as severe as it ever was.

European or Asian viewers have to wait for painful weeks or months for a domestic channel to license, schedule and dub international American hits like Lost or Mad Men, and hope, assuming their stations have a VOD service, that the show eventually finds its way online. As an ad-supported service and a product owned by the networks who profit from the above arrangement, Hulu's reluctance to stream content to countries is understandable, but the despair is deeper than that: You can't even pay for TV if you want to. People without American billing addresses are barred from VOD services like Amazon's Unbox, and will find their iTunes video selections sorely lacking.

Satellite Radio
Since is smells distinctly like a waning technology, satellite radio might not do much to stir your techno-patriotism, but goddernit, it's ours. The US has far more satellite radio subscribers than the rest of the world combined, all through the remains of Sirius and XM, now merged under the lazy moniker of "Sirius XM". Why? We have lots (and lots) of cars.

Satellite radio actually has roots as a proudly international service—after all, it is broadcast from frickin' space—having been developed in part by a humanitarian-initiative company called 1Worldspace, which was established to broadcast news and safety information to parts of the globe without reliable terrestrial radio infrastructure. They still exist today, but they broadcast to fewer than 200,000 subscribers, mostly in India and parts of Africa. Satrad's American success can be solely credited to our auto manufacturers, who eagerly installed satellite units in new cars for years, healthily boosting subscription numbers (but not necessarily car sales). With no comparably pervasive car culture to take advantage of anywhere else in the world, satellite radio is a tough sell.

If you've never heard of Moxi or Digeo, you are forgiven. Although the company has been making set-top boxes for almost a decade in one form or another, this is the first time Digeo is selling a Moxi box to consumers directly. There are rollouts of similar-looking Moxi cable boxes in smaller markets across the US—the chance is slim that you have one, but if you do, you're damn lucky, because they are a hell of a lot nicer than any of the crap Motorola or Scientific Atlanta DVRs that cable companies usually foist on their highest-paying customers.

But the question here is unfortunately not, "Is Moxi better than a cable box?" even though the answer to that question is, "You know it." The question is, why should I buy one of these instead of a TiVo? And the answer is, at the moment, you probably shouldn't.

Price Breakdown
When the news came out, some people bitched about the price, but the truth is, Moxi HD does sit somewhere between the two comparable CableCard-compatible high-def TiVo models. It's got a 500GB hard drive, bigger than the 160GB on the $300 baseline TiVo and smaller than the 1TB found in the $600 TiVo HD XL. Once you factor in service, it's pretty much exactly on par:

• Moxi HD is $800 up front, or four $200 payments, or 20 monthly payments of $40.
• TiVo HD is $300 plus $300 for three years of service up front (more if you pay a la carte)
• TiVo HD XL costs $600 plus the same service pricing, so if you pay for three years of service up front, it costs $100 more than Moxi

In the rear, they are very much the same. Both Moxi and TiVo deliver HD video over HDMI, take a CableCard tuner from any cable company, and can have expanded storage by way of a drive attached to the eSATA port. The difference lies in the interface, and in the internet-based services that each box offers at the moment, always subject to change.

Note: I realize that I have left out CableCard-compatible Windows Media Center PCs. As a fan of the Media Center platform, I didn't do this by accident. It's just that we have yet to see a cool-running quiet set-top PC marketed widely to average users for a reasonable price that can compete with TiVo or Moxi. When that product comes along, you better believe it will be in the running.

Interface
The company that builds the Moxi has been talking about their interface since the beginning of time, and even brags about an Emmy it won for it. I can see why. It's a fun interface, a refreshing change from candy-colored ca-plop ca-plop ca-plop TiVo menu that you might well be sick of by now.

The interface operates a bit like Sony's Xross Media Bar PlayStation interface, with icons running along a horizontal bar. Whenever you pause on an icon, Recorded TV, for example, you instantly see a vertically aligned list of choices, in this case, all the programs you've recorded, grouped by show and listed in alphabetical order. Point to a particular show grouping, and suddenly each episode appears to your right, and you can move over to them and select the one you want. In most cases, it's a fluid experience.

My beef on the interface is that there are things you must learn that aren't readily obvious, and are not helped by the design of the remote. The Zoom button turns out to be the most important button on the whole thing, but you wouldn't know it from being so tiny. Zoom brings you in and out of the overlaid Moxi interface, unlike the centrally positioned Moxi button, which does, well, something.

Button confusion is combined with redundant motions or inconsistent behaviors. For instance, sometimes the back button will get you out of things, but sometimes it will not, and you are required to hit OK. You can move forward (right) or back (left) along the main icon menu, but if you pause, you can no longer move right, because that takes you into a new menu, so you have to left-arrow your way out if you want to keep looking at the icons. Hitting OK when you land on an icon is a no-no as well, since that takes you to secondary options: The thing to do when you get to the icon you want is to freeze. Usually. If you're confused by all this, welcome to my first week with Moxi.

You can get over a lot of the confusion by learning the behavior, but I don't remember ever having to learn TiVo behavior, or even having to look at the TiVo remote, which I have to do a lot with Moxi. My final frustration with the interface is one that may be remedied soon. There isn't great customization. I don't know how to sort recorded shows by date, and there are too many icons in the main menu for things I couldn't give a fig about, and there's no way, at the moment, to hide them.

Note: I shot that one-handed while a cat was pounding into my arm, begging for lunch, so pardon the helter-skelter framing.

Services
The big deal with set-top boxes these days—not just cable boxes but Blu-ray players too—is connected services. Everybody wants Netflix, Amazon On Demand, Rhapsody, Hulu, YouTube, your mom's private video stream (just making sure you're paying attention). Officially, Moxi only has Rhapsody and Flickr at the moment, but unofficially, by way of a special Windows background-server app, it has all of the above and more.

PlayOn (normally $40 but Moxi gives you a "free" product key when you buy one) lives on your Windows PC, using it to access Netflix and Amazon as well as Hulu, CBS, YouTube, ESPN and CNN, to grab video from the services and pop it up on the Moxi screen. Now, as you might imagine, some of it looks like ass, and because of the double bottleneck—internet-to-PC then PC-to-Moxi—quality suffers and there are lots of hiccups. But in theory, with the ideal all-ethernet setup, you can immediately make your Moxi do more than a TiVo can now.

PlayOn The Moxi also yanks vids and stuff from your PC or other servers on your network. Like anything else, though, there's limited file compatibility, and I'm not a fan of the interface. I could get it to see H.264 video on a network drive, but it couldn't play them. And although the manual says you can stream H.264 video from a computer that can decode them first, I couldn't find any of the media files I had on the PlayOn test PC for some reason, probably because it didn't have Windows Media Connect or other server software running. (Side Note: Don't be like me—don't rip your DVDs in H.264.)

I think even if the PlayOn service worked half as well as it had inside my head, I'd be happy, but the Moxi service in general still felt buggy, like it was still in beta, even though I am assured that it is not. In addition to the expected occasional trouble with CableCard (some as a result of my moving houses), I have experienced more mysterious problems. Even now, the system occasionally restarts spontaneously, and I can't go two days without noticing chunks of time missing from my favorite shows, like they'd been hand recorded by Richard Nixon.

Other connected perks do work nicely. Like TiVo, you can program it over the web, and that worked instantly, so much so that it was my preferred way to add shows, because I could just type in their names, and pick recording preferences afterward. I will give a special shoutout to the Ticker, which, once you figure it out, lets you browse news reports and other text feeds while watching shows. It's great, but I'm still not comfortable turning it on and off. (Apparently, more practice is needed.)

So I end as I began, with a strong interest in Moxi and the need for new TiVo competitors, but with the gnawing feeling that however much Moxi can advance, TiVo has a head start it will be able to exploit for years to come. I love that there are more entrants to this field—Moxi's "enemy" as it were is not TiVo but the total crap cableco DVRs that both are striving to replace. That said, though, you can only have one, and I think I'm going back to TiVo, old-school menus, silly sound effects and all. [Product Page]

In Summary

Interface look is refreshing change from TiVo, with lots to do while watching TV PIP

PlayOn capability technically means it has the most web video options available; Ticker great for news, sports and weather

Price up front is daunting, even though it's on par with TiVo pricing when you factor in service

PlayOn server software not the easiest to work with, only runs on Windows, and internet connection can be very sluggy.

Remote button layout is confusing; important buttons are not clearly identified

Besides adding Rhapsody music, an enhanced Flickr with "mosaic" photo viewing, and DLNA connectivity for streaming video, music and photos from computers and servers around the house—three pretty obvious moves—Moxi now gets distributed with the PlayOn client for Windows, which actively takes Netflix, Hulu, CBS and other high-quality on-demand web video streams, and steers them right to the set-top box.

For the time being, Moxi is condemned to be the "other" CableCard-savvy set-top box. Yeah, it's lightyears better than the boxes most cable operators willingly hand over to you, but TiVo has worked hard at both interface and expansion, mixing Netflix, Amazon VOD, Rhapsody and other services into its menu to make it that much more valuable. Moxi has taken the cue, and is piling on services too.

Rhapsody was an obvious addition, and just like everywhere else Rhapsody turns up, there's a free 30-day no-strings-attached no-credit-card trial, which is nice.

It's also nice that Digeo added DLNA. It's not quite the DLNA 1.5 that we talked about in reference to Windows 7 (remember Play To?), but it is good enough to serve up video and other files via a simple browser.

What surprised me was that Moxi didn't add any VOD service directly to the box. I thought Netflix was getting in bed with everybody, but it sounds like they're tied up with the big CE companies now, and Digeo doesn't make the cut. So, instead, Digeo starts sharing PlayOn, this Windows app (which usually costs $40) that's sort of in the XBMC/Boxee/Twonky family of software. Moxi owners get it free, and use it to browse Hulu, YouTube, CBS.com and plenty of other VOD services, even grabbing their own Netflix video choices too. Any video you select is carried over your home network to the Moxi box and your TV.

The good news is, we have a box now, and I intend to test all of this once the firmware update happens. But even now I am heartened that the newcomer to the BYO-set-top-box category is pushing ahead. Remember, it's $800 for the Moxi HD, and now only sold on Amazon or Moxi.com, but that includes service for as long as you run it. I'm not saying buy one, at least, not yet, but I do think they're finally putting out a product worthy of review.

Digeo® Releases Major Enhancements to Flagship Moxi® HD DVR

Moxi® Entertainment Experience Gets Even Better with PlayOn™ Internet Video; Rhapsody®
Music; Home Theater Controls; and Enhanced Photos, Internet Services and DLNA-Certified™
Home Networking

KIRKLAND, WA – April 09, 2009 – Digeo, Inc. today announced new features and enhancements to the
Moxi® High Definition Digital Video Recorder (HD DVR), further advancing the world's best DVR. The
Moxi HD DVR has new services available directly from the on-screen menu including Internet video from
YouTube, Netflix, Hulu™ and more streaming directly to the TV through MediaMall Technologies'
PlayOn™ media server software as well as the streaming digital music service from Rhapsody®. The
Moxi HD DVR also now includes eControls, a home automation feature that allows users to customize the
home theater experience by adjusting lighting and other Z-Wave supported products. The Flickr® online
photo service and MoxiNet Internet browser were also enhanced, and Moxi is now certified to support the
DLNA® standard for improved home networking.

These new services will be available automatically to customers with a Moxi HD DVR via a software
upgrade at no additional charge from Digeo.

Additionally, as part of this new functionality, the company is offering existing and new Moxi customers a
PlayOn® license key (value $39.99) free for a limited time, as well as a free 30-day Rhapsody trial (value:
$12.99).

"In the current economic climate, people are more focused on at-home entertainment options and on
getting the most out of their HD investments," said Greg Gudorf, CEO, Digeo. "The world's best HD DVR
now delivers even more valuable entertainment services for the best home entertainment experience."

The Moxi HD DVR is designed to appeal to the most demanding digital cable entertainment enthusiasts.
With its native HD interface and Emmy® award-winning Moxi Menu, dual tuners, and up to 75-hours of HD
recording space (up to 300 hours at standard definition, and expandable well beyond with an external
eSATA drive), the Moxi HD DVR makes it effortless for consumers to discover, experience and share high
definition media from their digital cable provider, PCs on the home network and the Internet.

Adding to an extensive list of advanced features and services, the enhancements announced today as
part of the Moxi HD DVR Spring 2009 software release include:

• PlayOn – This media server software currently provides access to Internet videos from YouTube,
Hulu, CBS, Netflix, CNN, ESPN and more through the Moxi HD DVR from a PC on the home
network. Video formats are automatically converted so Moxi users can watch Internet video
directly on their widescreen HDTV.

• Rhapsody® – The leading on-demand digital music service is now available through the Moxi HD
DVR, allowing users to easily listen to any one of more than 7 million songs from all the major
record labels and hundreds of smaller independent labels. Rhapsody delivers complete control
over the music experience, helping users to easily find and play full length tracks, build playlists of
favorites or listen to Rhapsody's professionally programmed genre & artist channels. Starting
today, Rhapsody and Digeo are bringing music without limits to every user of the Moxi HD DVR.

• Media Link – Certified to support the DLNA home networking standard, Media Link connects the
TV or home entertainment system to PCs on a home network. Moxi users can easily stream
digital movies, videos, music and photos from their PCs for viewing or listening from the comfort
of their home entertainment environment.

• eControls – Moxi users can now manage their home entertainment environment through the Moxi
menu to set the mood. Users can adjust most Z-Wave-certified products such as lighting (e.g.,
turning sets of lights on, off or dimming), control volume and power on AV devices, as well as
monitor IP baby-cams or outside cameras, all from the remote control.

• Mosaic – A new browsing feature for the Flickr® online photo service available through the Moxi
menu, Mosaic allows users to rapidly scroll up, down and across their photos as they are
displayed as mosaic tiles on the display.

• MoxiNet –Moxi registered users can now bookmark their favorite websites at Moxi.com and
browse them on their home entertainment display using the Moxi remote as a virtual mouse. This
expands upon MoxiNet's quick access to news, sports scores, movie times, weather and other
information from the Internet.

For more details, including details of the PlayOn license key offer, technical specifications and screen
images of the Moxi HD DVR expanded feature set, please visit: www.moxi.com. You can also follow Moxi
on Twitter at www.twitter.com/moxi_hd or on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/c9vuxf

About Digeo
Digeo, Inc., a Paul Allen-backed company, provides premium home entertainment products including
digital video recorders (DVR). The company's mission is to enable the best consumer experience in high-
definition entertainment for the connected home. The company's flagship product – the Moxi® HD DVR
with Emmy® award-winning menu and features – serves as the hub for whole-home distribution of digital
entertainment. The Moxi platform empowers consumers to discover, experience and share high definition
media, including TV, movies, music, games, photographs and video. The Moxi HD DVR is available
directly to consumers at moxi.com or via Amazon at www.amazon.com/electronics. Moxi products are
also available through cable providers, with nearly a half million units deployed to U.S. households to
date. Digeo continues to innovate and provide Moxi solutions to the cable and IPTV industry, including
the licensing of the Moxi platform and services to consumer electronics manufacturers and service
providers. To learn more, please visit www.digeo.com.

TUAW says this is much, much better than the web-based method, and works well on 3G or EDGE. It requires one of the compatible models, and can even set a recording two minutes before a show starts. If you have a DTV DVR and an iPhone, you should get this. [App Store via TUAW]

It's not exactly a TiVo, and it's only capable of storing over-the-air TV (and in its current form, just European digital broadcasting protocols), but the BlobBox from Telsey and TVBlob has an impressive list of talents stashed in a single plastic case:

• BitTorrent searching and downloading (plus downloading via HTTP and FTP)
• YouTube playback and uploading
• Miro for podcast management
• DVB-T over-the-air dual tuner, for watching and recording at same time
• Support for DivX, Xvid, WMV, MP4, MOV, ASF and (soon) MKV
• Web browsing
• Access to Flickr and other photo sites for viewing
• UPnP and USB connectivity for accessing content on other devices
• HDMI output for true 1080p viewing

It's only got a 160GB hard drive, and not only does it just work on European DVB-T broadcasts, but it doesn't have anything like a CableCard either, and given the fact that the company is based in Italy with few or no US distribution, there's probably no plan for that either.

Bummers aside, the fact is, Telsey and TVBlob are taking us one step closer to Chen's dream, and we certainly admire anyone with the guts (and the stomach) to help Chen realize his fantasies. [PRWeb, TVBlob and Telsey via Engadget]

Like TiVo and other DVR products, the dilemma for the Moxi box was whether to encode re-digitize analog video or to get in bed with satellite and cable providers. They chose the latter, but found that the relationship was a little like a twentysomething aspiring actress "dating" a bigtime Hollywood producer who happened to be married. Comcast, Echostar and others may have promised a lot of good things—and Digeo backer Paul Allen certainly had some reason for keeping the company afloat so long—but we, the eager consumers, got nothin'.

I had over time grown so jaded about Moxi that CES 2009 came and went without me writing up this important bit of news: That the Digeo Moxi HD DVR was going on sale, direct to consumers.

What's great about Moxi? Even at the beginning, the interface was ahead of TiVo and everyone else, replacing layers with directional paths, kinda like kinda like Sony's Xross Media Bar (XMB), seen on the PS3 and newer electronics. Other Moxi boxes were more ambitious: One prototype had a built-in DVD player for single-box awesomeness. Another prototype featured unprecedented home video networking, bringing alive the dream of the DVR hub-and-spoke model for the home. These were mostly too good to be true, but the promise of a bold new DVR experience remained, echoing.

The Moxi HD DVR requires CableCard installation, but nothing else from your cable company. The $400 $800 box—priced just over TiVo HD XL in spite of a smaller drive—requires no monthly fees, can record 75 hours of HD content on its 500GB hard drive, has fluid navigation and a filter that automatically puts all HD content where you can find it easily.

Though most of the technical attributes line up with TiVo's—like the eSATA port for adding extra drives—there's no mention of the premium internet apps we have come to expect in everything devices like this one. Where is Amazon's VOD? Where's Netflix? Rhapsody? Napster? What they do offer now is Flickr for photos and Finetune for music, plus Digeo's own Moxi-branded delivery mechanism for "news, sports scores, entertainment and financial information, weather and more."

Am I sold? Far from it, but if the review unit arrives and works as billed, it'll be a huge-ass step in the right direction for this little company. And I welcome it. [Moxi at Amazon]

Update: A note attached to a press release sent to me today stated: "Moxi HD DVR’s total cost compared to TiVo HD XL is $200 less." The price itself wasn't mentioned anywhere. In my haste, I interpreted that convoluted sentence to mean that the price was $200 less than the XL's $600. Some of you have pointed out that it's not. I appreciate you catching the mistake, and once again I feel like Digeo Moxi has suckered me with its too-good-to-be-true sweet talk. I still welcome the product, but for $800 it better be good at foot massages and baking cookies, too.

Here's the CES press release:

Digeo Introduces Moxi® High Definition Digital Video Recorder

Flagship Moxi® HD DVR Sets New Standard for Integrated Digital Cable and Internet Entertainment

LAS VEGAS, January 8, 2009 - CES 2009 - Digeo, Inc., a Paul Allen-backed leader and innovator in cable set-top boxes, today announced the consumer availability of the Moxi® High Definition Digital Video Recorder (HD DVR), a premium home entertainment product that makes it easy for consumers to discover, experience and share high definition media from their digital cable provider, PCs on the home network and the Internet. The Moxi HD DVR is the first Digeo DVR available directly to consumers and is designed to appeal to the most demanding entertainment enthusiasts.

The Moxi HD DVR offers consumers a distinct experience among digital video recorders, unifying high definition cable, PC and Internet content throughout the home. Moxi's Emmy® award-winning menu is ingeniously uncomplicated, making it effortless for users to find TV programs and movies as well as photos, music, games and other Internet services. The Moxi HD DVR also offers a native HD experience. The Moxi system was designed from the outset to take full advantage of widescreen HDTVs and its 500 gigabyte hard-drive can hold up to 75 hours of recordings at full 1080 resolution. Finally, the Moxi HD DVR is a savvy investment for at-home entertainment. There are no monthly fees and no embedded advertising as with typical DVRs, and new features and services are automatically upgraded over the network at no charge.

"With the Moxi HD DVR, we built upon our experience deploying nearly half a million DVRs throughout the U.S. to understand what consumers are going to need long-term, and then we created a premium DVR that delivers the ultimate HD experience," said Greg Gudorf, CEO, Digeo, Inc. "Simply put, Moxi blows away other DVRs."

Digeo also today announced that it has selected Amazon.com as the exclusive launch retailer for the Moxi HD DVR, which is available for purchase now from Amazon.com's Electronics Store at www.amazon.com/electronics. Amazon will work closely with Digeo to promote and merchandise a "best in class" online experience which underscores the Moxi HD DVR concept to consumers. (Please see related Digeo press release for more detail.)

Further underscoring the Moxi platform's momentum, Monster Cable Products Inc. yesterday announced plans to introduce two Monster iTV® PowerCenters™, developed in alliance with Digeo, in June 2009. The iTV PowerCenters' MyOS control system is powered by the Moxi platform, enabling users to access a host of digital media content such as pictures, movies, games and music, as well as operate network security cameras and Monster's IlluminEssence Advanced Lighting Control module. Moxi software works in conjunction with Monster MyOS to seamlessly integrate digital media and home automation within the TV experience, unlike other solutions which require a myriad of separate devices and control interfaces to accomplish this. (Please see related Monster press release for more detail.)

The Moxi HD DVR's many advanced features and consumer benefits include:

* Dual-tuner HD DVR - users can record two shows and watch a third pre-recorded show all in HD; users can play, pause and rewind live TV
* Emmy® award-winning single-screen interface enables users to find content quickly and avoid getting lost in a maze of navigation levels as with other DVRs
* Content and services are always presented in the same consistent format regardless of source
* 500 GB storage means 75 hours of 1080 HD recording or 300 hours of standard definition recording - and Moxi is expandable with up to two terabytes of external eSATA drive storage
* Brings web-based services such as Flickr, Finetune and more to the HDTV
* Access to a wide variety of Internet content including news, sports scores, entertainment and financial information, weather and more through MoxiNet and the Moxi SuperTicker™
* Remote web and mobile browser scheduling
* Connection to PCs through home network to play music and display photos
* Dolby Digital certified for high-fidelity surround sound
* CableCARD™-equipped Broadcom BCM7400-based set-top box with twice the processing power of competitors to render HD graphics

To celebrate Moxi HD DVR's unveiling, Digeo will be giving away three units during the International Consumer Electronics Show. Consumers can register for the drawing at moxi.com/CES.

To learn more about the Moxi HD DVR's features and pricing, please visit www.moxi.com

About Digeo
Digeo, Inc., a Paul Allen-backed company, provides premium home entertainment products including digital video recorders (DVR). The company's mission is to enable the best consumer experience in high-definition entertainment for the connected home. The company's flagship product - the Moxi® HD DVR with Emmy® award-winning menu and features - serves as the hub for whole-home distribution of digital entertainment. The Moxi platform empowers consumers to discover, experience and share high definition media, including TV, movies, music, games, photographs and video. The Moxi HD DVR is available directly to consumers at moxi.com or via Amazon at www.amazon.com/electronics. Moxi products are also available through cable providers, with nearly a half million units deployed to U.S. households to date. Digeo continues to innovate and provide Moxi solutions to the cable and IPTV industry, including the licensing of the Moxi platform and services to consumer electronics manufacturers and service providers. To learn more, please visit 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. Recording capacity times can vary depending on content type and bit rates utilized by the provider. Stated recording capacities are calculated in typical usage scenarios. Certain future services may be offered at additional cost.

DVR Remote uses Wi-Fi to connect to TiVos on your network with a one-button command. I've tried out the $3 program, and even though it's $2 more than its competitor (which has recently been renamed RemoteT), it also feels far more polished with nicer graphics, instantaneous TiVo syncing and handy-looking Now Playing list that I couldn't spot in my build.

The iPhone isn't quite our ultimate universal remote, but with enough specific apps it could certainly get us a bit closer to the dream. [DVR Remote (iTunes Link)]