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]

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

The payment options—which are made through PayPal—is available in all but 13 states and the District of Columbia because of legal restrictions, but the company says the may extend it later to all the states depending on the consumer response. You can also get it in four payments of $199.75.

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.

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.

Anyways, back to the story at hand. Both Digeo boxes, in addition to just playing and recording HD broadcasts, will let you stream content to your PC as well as web schedule recordings. One big difference between the two will be that the Moxi Home Cinema Edition will be linux-based and also use AMD LIVE! Home Cinema reference design. Basically all that means is that it will have some special audio features that will make audio & videophiles go nuts. Look for them in the second half of '07.– Ben Longo