Motorola Readies CableCARD Compliant HD DVR

Since Engadget and PVRWire mentioned the new Motorola box (DCH-3416) this weekend, I thought I’d chime in with a bit more info. This HD DVR was announced at CES, and in fact Moto had quite a few on display (pic above).

First, it looks much sharper, more modern than the 6412 (and others). Second, the reason this is on the way to a cableco (or telco) near you is the FCC’s 7/07 seperable security requirement: This box supports CableCARD, both M-Card and CC 1.0. Mari tells me it contains a 160GB hard drive and is OCAP-capable.

But is it TiVo capable? TiVo believes their Java-based software can easily port to other platforms. While it’s not indicative of anything, I did observe TiVo briefing a group of Moto folks in Vegas. Hmm… or was Moto briefing TiVo.

This box doesn’t do much to impress Cableric (“same pig, new lipstick”), though he mentioned a new ability to change output settings without rebooting into the MENU screen. He also sent along the schematics below. Thanks, Eric!