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Moxi Functions In Charter Set-top Box Next Year
An anonymous reader writes: "Charter Communications will offer a Moxi-like
cable tv set top box with DVR / MP3 capabilities
next year.
Here it is. I like the idea of merging the set-top box with a DVR using normal cable tv or satellite. A good combination."
is that all these companies are owned by Paul Allen and the article states that the main competitor will be Microsoft (which was co-founded by Allen).
I like the idea of merging the set-top box with a DVR using normal cable tv or satellite. A good combination.
The trade-off, of course, is that they _both_ have to be upgraded if you want something better. The whole unit would have to be replaced, in this case.
See how much people on here bitch about the iMac if you don't think this would be a problem.
--saint
I like the idea of merging the set-top box with a DVR using normal cable tv or satellite. A good combination.
Yea that's a great combination. While you're at it, let's combine my microwave oven with my freezer. Oh and don't forget that useful tiolet-sink combo.
Bleh.. Just give me a cheap black box that does one thing WELL, rather than fifty things half-assed.
too bad they can't get thier cable internet working right...
Maybe someone has come up with this thought before...
With all these convergence boxes/devices has anyone put in any thought about what happens when one breaks? I mean, if I invest in one device for everything and it breaks/hangs/crashes I'm SOL for everything I use the box for. I'd hate to lose TV, music, DVDs, gaming and web all at once...
I tend to like many devices with specific purposes. That also seems to keep the stability up reasonably well.
Does anyone else agree?
This is a computer that you keep by your TV. Hm... can't those exist now?
sig.
Why, the Moxi Pad of course!
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
cost about 250... its called a used PC
Is that the cable company would controll it. Take the ReplayTV fiasco for instance. They fought back because they don't get any perks from the industry, however cable companies, that is their bread and butter. And being a cable company, God only knows what features they can/will/could put in it, or disable (like 30 second skip to bypass commercials). I don't trust the same people who provide my content to be the ones who allow me to manipulate it at whim. Then again todays climate could just have me uoverly paranoid :)
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
Oh and don't forget that useful tiolet-sink combo.
Don't they have those in prison?
What are the odds of us ever seeing one of these here in Australia? All the cool MP3 related devices (eg Voyetra's AudioTron, the SliMP3, etc) are unavailable here for various reasons...
:(
I hate living in the technological third world
I don't really like the idea of using a "set top" box as it offers me little control. I see the digital hub as a PC not as a set top.
This sounds like a great idea but i'm sure there will be some type of encoding that won't allow you to record premium channels or skip commercials. This is just some kind of ploy to trick the consumer into self-limiting what they can record and view.
If I remember correctly, the original Moxi system had optional set-top boxes that you could string via Ethernet throughout the house to watch content off the main box on other TVs. That's what I found the most appealing about the Moxi. The rest is hardly an improvement over the current TiVo devices.
I have a question. I use Charter Cable TV and Pipeline (their cable internet service.) If I buy the set top box, I assume I would need to get Digital Cable from them. BUT say that I do do that.
Will I have to pay ANOTHER montly fee to view e-mail and surf from my TV if I have their computer cable internet subscription? I hope not, but you never know...
Cover your eyes and click this link!
With Charter, and digital cable, it costs around $10 a month for the box. When this comes out, they will probably offer choices for the same dulld rab box for $10/mo or the Tivo one for $15/mo .. Charter doesn't seem to do huge leaps in prices unless it's from Basic -> Extended. Extended -> Digital is rather cheap, and the boxes etc along with it .. More than likely most average people would be paying an extra $15/mo for the Tivo like box WITH the added digital channels that come with it. We will so. If it is too much for my dad (Who is really stingy.), then it probably wont be worthwhile for them to invest in this technology. One thing that I bet they are banking on is VIEWING HABITS. With Tivo, you can be ANONYMOUS, or OPT OUT ENTIRELY. I am guessing with Charter, you will NOT have either of those options, so that might even make the service cheaper in the long run. We shall see, but for now, I am glad they're at least TRYING. PVRs are the way of the future for the generation of people who have NO TIME. When you have that extra hour to do nothing, you can sit down and watch your favorite show and be happy and relax.
I was very pleased to see on the Cox web site that they are working on integrating a PVR into the cable box as well. Woo hoo!
Cox also rocks in that they are going to supply HDTV signals. Double woo hoo! Maybe it'll actually be worth buying an HDTV unit someday.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
My company, Mediacom(www.mediacomcc.com) is definitely looking into providing high speed web access via set-top boxes. For the most part we offer high speed internet access to places that sometimes can't even get a local dial up. Unfortunately, they haven't really committed to offering this type of access yet.
I'm on a chair.
There are some definite benefits to a combined system: digital channels can be recorded without being re-compressed, increasing quality; it's easier & more likely to be able to record more than one show at a time; it should cost less than two separate units duplicating functionality; the combined UI could be simpler to use.
There are some pretty significant drawbacks, though. As others have pointed out, these units are unlikely to have features content providers dislike -- they certainly won't have automatic commercial skipping, and may not have 30-second skip; they're not likely to have internet video sharing; they may have restrictions on how long shows can be kept, how many times they can be played, and whatkinds of shows can be recorded. The biggest problem, though, is that the end user won't own the unit -- it'll be rented from the cable company. Thus, no modifications. No HD upgrades, no tivo web, no shell hacking, nada.
At the beginning of this year, I was waiting for Moxi with baited breath. Their CES demo blew me away. Dish Network had a Moxi-box with 4 tuners that would be available by summer. Nearly 7 months later, they're still nowhere to be found. No cable, no Dish Network, no nothing. Now they're announcing another box that will be "available soon". It'll be nice if this actually happens, but in the meantime, I'm giving my Tivo and Tivo Series 2 the three thumbs up. Moxi, time to join Anna Kournikova in the lists of things that look sexy, turn you on, but in the end, don't deliver.
We already have the PVR / Cable facility in the UK with Sky Plus. It is a good idea, but the way it's panned out it's more a way for Murdoch to increase his monopoly / increase tie-in to Sky / take more money into the Murdoch Fold. It's not as good a solution, but I think the best thing to do is to keep your set top & your cable box separate. You'll appreciate it in the long run.
Training monkeys for world domination since 1439
I hope they start crunchinf SETI on that beast
Right on the Moxi product page: "Conditional Access Decryption". Well of course they're going to put in restrictions on how and when you view things. This is a product for the cable industry to help them make more money. If it was intended to make TV better for the consumer, you'd see them on sale at Circuit City and Best Buy.
This is more a slam on Charter than anything else. I'm amazed they managed to figure out the whole PVR thing, considering that you either need two remotes to record something, or a cable mouse on your VCR. On the plus side, it is kinda an improvement, since their current "digital cable" box has numerous bugs and I can make it crash once a day, doing nothing too involved. Laaaaaaaaaaaaa......
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
While I'm not aware of either companies involved with this box, it sounds a lot like the "Sky+" box we have in the UK. Basically, Sky, satellite TV company (and given that a lot of the country cannot receive cable, by far the supplier of TV beyond the standard 5 channels), has come up with a box that can spool the incoming digital TV signal on to HD.
As the signal received is digital (I believe they actually use MPEG-2), there is no loss from encoding, except that at origin. The first boxes were released around a year ago, and although they've had their problems, seem like a good idea.
The boxes sell for the equivalent of about $450, and have a monthly subscription cost of around $13 on top of that. They come with two tuners, so they can record one channel while you watch another, and are generally great.
AFAIK they have no advert skip function, however they do allow time delaying of pay per view events (you can record them when you want, and then watch them whenever you want, although I beleive it erases them after watching).
...define and use a standard interface. Tight integration is the enemy of both competition and creativity. Don't let them lock *your* ideas out!
I bet Jack Valenti's rolling over in his grave...wait a minute, he's not dead...or is he?
This is slightly off-topic, but I thought I would tell about the problems I've had with Charter. I signed up for the mid-grade (is it bronze?) "pipeline" cable modem service about a year ago, and really liked it. It went down a few times for extended periods, but every time I called they were very good about crediting my account for all the downtime.
Then about sometime in April I got a call from a telemarketer. I really hate telemarketers, so I was pretty pissed, but just as I was about to rage on the guy, I heard the phrase "one month of free digital cable". I'm really not interested in digital cable, and I can't afford it, but I figured I would try it out. We scheduled an appointment for the following Tuesday morning (before noon to be exact), and I skipped work because I was pretty excited.
Well 12:30 came and nobody showed up, and I angrily called Charter. We re-scheduled for a Saturday morning and even though I was pissed that I missed work, I was still kind of excited - the free didgital cable kind of made up for the money I lost from not working. The Saturday appt was from 10am-2pm, and around noon I decided to double-check with Charter to make sure that they were still coming. I was not surprised when they explained that my appointment had somehow been cancelled. They had wasted close to 8 hours of my time. The following Monday I called in to cancel my account with Charter. This is why I fucking hate telemarketers - even though they were offering free stuff, I had still gotten screwed.
After negotiating with Charter's customer support (who were great by the way), I decided to accept their apologetic offer for 2 free months of Digital Cable plus my existing pipeline service, which was close to a $200 credit. That served as a nice apology for all my wasted time. My digital cable went in about May 1st.
About mid-July, I got a bill from Charter for about $130, just as my Mother asked me to help her pick a high-speed internet provider. I called Charter and explained that the bill was in error and that as soon as they cleared it up I would sign my mom up for her account. After spending 45 minutes on the phone with a supervisor, I was told that the bill was correct and that I would still have to pay the full balance. I cancelled my account, and fired off a letter explaining in great detail that I would not pay any fees for services that they had offered for free. I received yet another bill for the full amount.
The moral of the story is that Charter provided a pretty good service but did not hesitate to try to screw me. From now on I will be recording any phone calls that relate to billing issues, because there is a good chance that I will get stuck with this $130 bill even though they offered the service for free. Telemarketers suck. Charter sucks. Big companies suck, don't ever trust them.
-dbc
Fundamental point, all of these boxes with built in video coders/decoders, a tuner and a hard disk will drive those components down in price so that we will be able to build homemade versions of them for almost no money.
Does this mean a reasonable sub- $100.00 pc for the masses or a $50 xbox/ps2 ??
The words "Moxi-like" in the post should be changed to "Moxi." This new box is using Moxi technologies, since Moxi was acquired by Digeo (also owned by Paul Allen earlier this year.
MPEG at Dish, Analog into Tivo, MPEG to disk. The MPEG compression is better at the satellite, so I'd rather have an integrated unit.