DVRs, Unboxing the Moxi HD DVR
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Apr 14th 2009 11:05AM
posted Apr 14th 2009 11:05AM
DVRs, posted Apr 14th 2009 11:05AM
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AHHHH! I want one of these SO bad engadget. I would pick one up too, if Comcast ON Demand was available on it. If they expand their streaming capabilites to boxee standards, then well, I may be interested.
Holy Smokes, that logo is really bright. I have the unfortunate habit of fixating on something like that and then have a hard time looking away. Especially in a dark room when all the rest of the gear is thankfully dim. Geez, even after all these years I find myself staring at those darn "bugs" that all TV channels now put in the corner of the screen so that you never for a second forget which network you're watching. No matter how much I tell myself to look away. Ouch, brightly glowing MOXI, I am uncontrollably drawn to you...
The logo has 3 brightness settings (High, Medium, Low). It also has an additional setting to turn it completely off. I have found that "Low" is still too bright while trying to watch a movie in a darkened room. I just end up turning the logo off.
I'd have bought one already if it supported OTA. There's just no good OTA DVR's out there.
No good OTA DVRs? Really? Maybe you should take a look at a TiVo HD.
What's wrong with Tivo HD units? I have two and they work great.
Back to Moxi. That front logo thing has to go. I can't have that bright thing going. What's its purpose/benefit to me? Also, that remote control looks cheap.
I wouldn't mind not having to pay a monthly fee. But, considering Tivo's reliability, I'll deal with it.
No good OTA DVRs? Er...do you have Windows? Media Center is perhaps the best OTA DVR there is, and most people already have it!
The functions of a TIVO might make for a good OTA HD DVR but if you want to record OTA, you probably don't pay for cable/sat, and if you don't pay for TV why would you want to pay TIVO 13 bucks a month? That's a big issue for those who choose OTA.
How is this Moxi different from the total piece of junk Moxi I got from Charter a while back?
I have 2 Tivo HDs (1 with M-stream, 1 with 2 cards) in my house. In each case the Cable Card install went relatively smoothly but it still took about 3 hours each time. Given that the Moxi only has 1 M-Card slot and some cable providers don't have M-Cards, I wouldn't touch it. In my opinion, Cable Cards are so picky that I would want to buy a device that the installer has no experience with. While TivoHDs aren't very widespread, the cable provider will at least have some experience.
I suspect the target for this device is really cable providers to deploy to their customers.
Motorola stopped manufacturing S-cards in 2007. So any provider using motorola cards should be running out of S-cards soon if they haven't already. Almost all providers have M-cards nowadays. I think SA makes cablecards too, but I don't know their m-card status.
My experiences with Cablevision and FIOS were that although the installers have no experience, the process went pretty smoothly in both cases. I have a Cablecard TV and 2 TiVoHDs and haven't had any issues with them since the install.
The Moxi is certainly an interesting player, and seems to have a few advantages over the TivoHD
-- HD interface
-- supports 2T expansion drive via ESata
-- no monthly fee to Tivo for the privilege of having pause ads pushed to me
-- not having my viewing habits harvested
A big issue for me is how accurate is their guide data, and how rapidly does it update when new channels are added? Comcrap has been adding new HD stations here in the Seattle area, and the Tivo guide never seems to get the updates. Have had to actually call Tivo the last few times and file trouble tickets to get the channel and guide data updated.
"-- no monthly fee"
Tivo has that option too, it's called a Lifetime Subscription. A Tivo HD + Lifetime currently costs about $250 + $400 = $650, so it's still less expensive than the $800 Moxi.
"-- not having my viewing habits harvested"
Are you sure Moxi doesn't collect usage data? I'd be very surprised if they don't. It's a source of revenue for most DVR suppliers.
"-- no monthly fee"
Tivo gives you the choice: monthly fee, or one-time fee up front (Lifetime subscription). A Tivo HD + Lifetime subscription currently costs about $250 + $400 = $650, which is cheaper than the $800 Moxi.
"-- not having my viewing habits harvested"
Are you sure Moxi doesn't do that? I'd be very surprised. Please provide a link if you can back up that statement.
Grrr, stupid comment system. Sorry for the double post, the first one took a while to show up so I thought it got lost.
Yes, they do offer the lifetime subscription. Comparison of the costs of the Moxi versus the TivoHDXL + Tivo's lifetime (more an apple vs apple comparison) place the cost of the Tivo higher than the Moxi box on it's own. Yes, I know you can swap out the drive on Tivo, but that's not something the average consumer is going to do.
Lifetime service or monthly, you still pay for the privilege of having Tivo push ads to you.
I scanned through their privacy policy, and yes, you're correct, they do collect the usage data. Even with that negative, Moxi is still offers and interesting feature set compared to the Tivo boxes.
@Rich
Moxi vs. TiVoHDXL isn't apples to apples either. The XL has twice the storage space than the Moxi (1TB vs. 500GB.). The XL also has an OTA tuner.
I really like what I have seen about the Moxi box, but I just think the price is way too high. They would need to knock off around $200 for me to consider it.
@scyber
I have Cablevision too. The cards are from Sci Atl. Even if Motorola has stopped making S-Cards, I would imagine they still have a lot of them in inventory. When my latest install happened last month the installer came with both S- and M-Cards.
I guess my issue is that since there is no OTA tuner, this box is useless if you have no cablecard
This box supposedly does ClearQAM mapping unlike a TiVOHD. Which means that you can map your ClearQAM stations to guide data w/o a cablecard. So you should be able to record the network channels (abc,cbs, fox, cw) w/o a cablecard. I am pretty sure Cablevision still provides those channels w/o encryption.
last time i checked you couldn't get on demand content using cablecard.....i'm assuming this is still the case, so i'm curious why you would use this over a 8350 from time warner.
Cheers,
Dean
@scyber
True it's not a exact match, but it's a closer comparison...Red Delicious vs Granny Smith :)
Even with the storage differences, you can add a small, 500Gb ext drive to the moxi to even out the storage, the Moxi still comes in a bit less compared to the TivoHD XL w/Lifetime.
I started in the DVR world with a ReplayTV and eventually changed to the TivoHD. The Moxi feature set is interesting and I hope it give the Tivo people some food for thought on how to make their interface better, more usable, and user friendly. Competition is good.
It looks like the front logo's brightness can be adjusted via the Settings menu - at least according to the Moxi website.
The only thing the Moxi brings to the table that Tivo HD doesn't is the Moxi Mate.
This is something I've been emailing Tivo to offer for a while now. It's a device that sits in another room, on another TV, and basically acts as a repeater to access your DVR from another TV. Tivo requires you to purchase a second Tivo, another subscription, and use their room to room feature. It's expensive, and an absurd solution.
I just want a little box like the Moxi Mate that sites on my second TV to access my Tivo in my living room. No hard drive, no added subscription fees, just a simple interface to my Tivo in the other room.
The Tivo HD can be expanded via eSata, you can opt out of usage data, and you can get a lifetime service.
I also don't see any ads pushed to me while watching Tivo, so I'm not sure what that was about.
The other big feature is the ClearQAM channel mapping. This allows the Moxi to record unencrypted digital channels w/o a cablecard. TiVo does not offer this (although in a limited set of markets, it does work correctly for some people). Since most cable providers are going all-digital (if not already), TiVo's will be useless on cable w/o a cablecard and its associated subscription fee. This adds to the TCO of the TiVo. Moxi will provide an alternative if all you are looking to record from is the unencrypted network channels.
There is a 61 page thread on TCF discussing this feature, so it is obviously wanted/desired by a number of people.
The Moxi also appears to support more eSata drives than the TiVoHD does out of the box. The TiVoHD only supports 2 drives(both from Western Digital), and those are more expensive than comparable sized eSata drives.
Competition is good. Hopefully it will drive TiVo to add some of the features above.
The Moxi DVR really interests me. I'm stuck on the Comcast Motorola 160GB DCH-3416 DVR. Yeah it's a really bland, featureless operating system with very minimal storage. I did consider Tivo for a little bit, but to tell you the truth, to purchase a Tivo and pay a monthly subscription for a stretched 4:3 SD user interface is just not worth it. Now the Moxi has that rich 16:9 HD UI that just makes it look like a joy to use. That's the kind of innovation I don't have a problem spending money on.
I just hope they can do a few things before I bite the bullet. Striking a deal with Seachange to get VOD support (as Tivo recently announced) would be KILLER.
If they can prove that they keep up with applications, perhaps pandora radio app, boxee like recommendations apps, automatically tweet to your twitter when you watch a recording, present caller ID on screen information, maybe a skype application... I just see the possibilities being endless. I want to know for this kind of money, that the box is powerful enough that the software will be able to be innovative and robust. It would really be cool if they created a sandbox where anyone could get on board with app development, sort of like an Apple Store / Windows Marketplace environment where people showcase their applications for free or for a few cents or dollars.
It does currently support MPEG 2 and WMV, plus MPEG 4 and H.264 files via DLNA servers that support transcoding. If I can get some of this content off my PC, then wow, what a device. Multi-Room access will be interesting as well.
Just a comment on pricing including shipping from quick Internet search
Moxi: $799
TiVo HD XL With Lifetime:
Current TiVo owner: $795
Non TiVo owner: $895
TiVo HD with Lifetime:
Current TiVo owner: $530
Non TiVo ower: $630
Of course prices change almost daily but it is pretty clear that the Moxi doesn't have a price advantage over TiVo.