CableLabs Leaks Moxi Box News

moxi box

If you follow the DVR market, you likely remember Digeo’s spectacular failure-to-launch earlier this year. After hyping a line of retail DVR products through the Consumer Electronics Show, the company suddenly pulled the launch and cut half its staff in mid-January. We got word that Digeo would continue to focus on one retail DVR product with details to be announced later in the year, but in general the news was pretty bad.

Now, Jeff Baumgartner has made the savvy discovery that at least in the cable world, Digeo is still on track with new hardware. CableLabs leaked the news in a press announcement about products that will be on display at the Cable Show next month. Digeo’s new product, the Moxi HD DVR 3012, will include CableCARD support (a first, I believe), dual tuning, a larger hard drive, and the lawsuit-free-thanks-to-a-Gemstar-licensing-deal Moxi interface.

Still no word on a retail Digeo box. Maybe next CES?

Full Disclosure: I work with Motorola, which is both a technology partner and sometime-competitor of Digeo’s.

13 thoughts on “CableLabs Leaks Moxi Box News”

  1. They’re most likely done with Moto hardware and will do their own thing going forward. But I don’t know how on track they really are – this OCAP box was promised last year. ;) Nice find, Jeff!

  2. You write, “Digeo’s new product, the Moxi HD DVR 3012, will include CableCARD support (a first, I believe)…”

    A first for what company? Are you talking about Diego or the industry? Clearly, TiVo and HDTV manufacturers already have CableCARD support, althought that is being screwed up by cable company SDV conversions.

  3. Mari is referring specifically to Digeo, of course. She’s quite familiar with CableCARDs and industry. In fact, our introduction and first conversation a few years ago was related to OCAP.

    Speaking of which, wonder if this new Moxi box is tru2way. I also wonder when they’ll be made available to Charter. Regardless, customers of this particular box shouldn’t experience any SDV concerns as it’s a cable-co deployment.

  4. @Richard Yes, I’m talking about a first for Digeo
    @Sam I don’t know about the TiVo patent- Dave?
    @lutton Either you’re a big fan of Digeo, or you have a toddler at home who watches a lot of Dora the Explorer (with her friend Diego…)

  5. I don’t think TiVo will bother going after anyone else until the Echo case is resolved. As far as if the Moxi box violates, I don’t know. After sitting in on the appeals process here in DC, the details currently being disputed are highly technical in nature. Regardless, I don’t think TiVo would bother going after a small fry like Digeo – who may not be long for this world… a Cisco or Moto would be much more attractive. But I have no idea if or how they might infringe. Could be a non-issue. And the Echo case is unique given the earlier interactions of the two companies.

    Keep in mind I’m not a patent attorney, I own two TiVo units, and I work for Sling Media.

  6. Before I left BendBroadband I got a glimps of the new box and was underwhelmed, to say the least. The problems that I had with the box:

    1. It felt cheap and “plastic-y” compared to the Mot hardware. I believe the new box is manufatured by ASUS.

    2. DSG (DOCSIS Set-top Gateway) only. What this means is that the box will not function (or function to it’s full potential) if the cable plant is running legacy out of band. Default for Mot HW is 75.25MHz, but different MSO’s use different OOB’s. Until BBB activated DSG (sending OOB data to the cable modem) this meant no VOD and no PPV (in fact there was some question as to whether PPV would ever work, why they said this I don’t know).

    3. The guide was SLOWER than the Motorola Moxi. This may be due to the HD GUI, new code that hadn’t been optimized, or a combination of both.

    4. It didn’t do ANYTHING that the Mot box couldn’t do. Until a fully OCAP plant was put into place I felt this box was actually a step backward.

    In the spirit of full disclosure I will say that some of this information is second hand, and came out after my departure. I will also say that like Mari, I now work for a STB competitor of Digeo.

  7. yeah, i can see why that would leave you less than impressed…that’s quite a list of shortcomings based on your early look at it. i’m checking around as well to get some reax to it…and see if Digeo’s made any changes that might improve beyond what you witnessed. JeffB

  8. I beta-tested the retail version, and I certainly hope for Digeo’s sake that they’ve made improvements. Clunky, slow, choppy and runs hot enough that I would keep it away from children were the words I used to describe the mess of a box I had.

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