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Television Media

Is MOXI Toast? 115

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-want-my-dtv dept.
onosko writes "Moxi Digital, one of the big hits of the 2002 Consumer Electronics Show in January, has bitten the dust, absorbed by one of Paul Allen's companies, Digeo. At CES, Moxi showed a Linux-based PVR and home entertainment server system that used Ethernet or 802.11a to distribute video, audio and JPEGs throughout a house. Last week, Digeo announced that it would not use Microsoft's interactive TV software." This really looked liked the best of the upcoming PVRs. Bummed to see it collapse. Here is a somewhat related and really entertaining short bit about Tivo turning 3
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Is MOXI Toast? More

Is MOXI Toast?

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  • Open Source (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Da J Rob ( 469571 )
    What we need an open source initiative. How hard would it be? All we need is a sourceforge project, and to avoid the DMCA they have all thier components be 'plug-ins' so that if some part of the project gets sued/shutdown etc... the whole project isn't compromised.

    Any takers on this task?

  • Oh well (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Hemos (editor) ( 569506 )
    So much for this [realnetworks.com]...

    One Of My Three Favorite Linux Sites [monolinux.com]
    • TiVo and Real have announced a partnership similar to the one that Moxi has (had). You'll see that on TiVo in the future, too!
      • TiVo and Real have announced a partnership similar to the one that Moxi has (had). You'll see that on TiVo in the future, too!

        Unless he's joking, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. No such deal between Real and TiVo exists.
        • Actually, I'm sorry, I screwed up. There IS a Real/TiVo deal, with the Series2, I was reading too quickly and for some reason read Replay.

  • Bit the dust??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nintendork ( 411169 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @11:42AM (#3248141) Homepage
    I would not think that by assuming a new ownership, they've died and gone away. They just got bought out by a much larger company that will have more resources to make their projects a reality. This is a good thing.
    • Sure, there will theoretically be more "resources", but in the majority of instances where a company is bought out, their previous business plan and goals are thrown into the garbage and the new owner puts the product into a tailspin trying to imagine new methods to bring about profit.

      In this case, any and all statements previously made by MOXI representatives (executives, product managers, dev team folks, et al.) can be forgotten, as the new management will evaluate and develop the new plan for MOXI's product.

      The First Site I Visit In The Morning [monolinux.com]

      • Re:Bit the dust??? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by erat ( 2665 )
        Who's to say Moxi's business plan didn't suck?

        Just because a company has cool technology, that doesn't mean the company has any clue about bringing that technology to a wide market. If technology is all that was required to make a product sell we'd have a much cooler bevy of gadgets to play with. As it stands, cool technology in the hands of technology buffs and geeks has proven to be less than successful.

        As much as most techies would like to think to the contrary (not necessarily you, Jeff, but others "out there"), cool technology needs sales and marketing dorks as well as pointy haired bosses to push this stuff out to the market in a manner that is familiar to other sales and marketing dorks and pointy haired bosses. You must speak the language before communication can truly flow... By being absorbed into a bigger, flashier company, this technology -- perhaps in slightly altered form (why would Digeo buy Moxi if it only wanted to kill its technology??) -- may have a better chance of becoming ubiquitous. The only geeky startup that I've ever seen do well without dreaded non-technical upper management is Google, and even they are getting an upper management staff to "dork-ize" the business so they can move up the food chain. It's an unfortunate fact of business, at least in the US.
    • Good point, but remember, Napster was bought by the recording industry - a much larger company with more resources (say, rights to all the recorded songs) to make their projects a reality. Sometimes getting bought out is a bad thing, especially if you're a newcomer in a market dominated by one or two companies.
      • If you remember years ago Amiga was bought by various companies which never injected the money they needed to re-launch which led to the slow death of the platform - so being bought out is not necessarily a good thing.
    • Absorbed by. The purchasing company probably bought off MOXI to aquire some of its employees, technology, and other resources.

      I seriously doubt if the new owner is interested in furthering MOXI's actual products.

      • Re:Bit the dust??? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        From the press release:

        "Digeo and Moxi have been working along parallel paths to implement very similar visions," said Digeo CEO Jim Billmaier. "Integration of the two companies will be swift, our efforts will be amplified, and we'll deliver an even better media center platform to market sooner. We believe these new platforms will be very attractive to cable and satellite companies looking for new revenue opportunities."
    • They just got bought out by a much larger company that will have more resources to make their projects a reality. This is a good thing.

      Sure--look at how well it worked for WebTV... :)

  • Birthday presents... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Foxman98 ( 37487 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @11:46AM (#3248161) Homepage
    "The TiVo folks did celebrate it, though. We let go. In fact, almost nine months to the day after we shipped Blue Moon 5 babies were born to TiVo employees within 5 days of each other. (True!)"

    Hmmmm.... nah.... I couldn't be....
    Wait a minute!!!!!!! Dad's B-day - 5th of March. Mine - December 10th - ARRRRRRRRRRRGHHH

    • "The TiVo folks did celebrate it, though. We let go. In fact, almost nine months to the day after we shipped Blue Moon 5 babies were born to TiVo employees within 5 days of each other. (True!)"

      Hmmmm.... nah.... I couldn't be.... Wait a minute!!!!!!! Dad's B-day - 5th of March. Mine - December 10th - ARRRRRRRRRRRGHHH

      I was 22 before my then-girlfriend (now wife) pointed out that my Dad's birthday was July 7 and mine was April 7. I had gotten through that much growing up and never thought about it.

      Yuck.

      • My parent's anniversary: Nov 11. My birthday: July 6. From the time I knew it took 9 months (9 mo, 5 minutes to be exact) to make a baby I've known when the swimmer who would be Jim found Nirvana.
      • My wife was four weeks early on our second child, and five weeks early on the first & the twins.


        Nine months is far from absolute. One of my best friends was born a touch more than three months early --- but his twin didn't make it :(


        hawk


    • Feel sorry about people like me who are born in early September.

      Daddy's sperm probably had a high alcohol content from the New-Years Champange. Perhaps that explains why my FETAL-ALCOHOL-FETUS-BODY only has FLIPPERS instead of arms and legs. Oh God HELP Me! I'm flipper in a monkey body. It HURTS! arrr... the bright light... make it stop....

    • Count me as another - Mom's birthday is July 28 and mine is May 2, but I was due April 21.

      Ick.

  • Anyway, to this day, we don't work on the last Friday of March each year, as it is known as the Blue Moon Holiday.
    I sure wish my boss had received that memo!

  • Sure about ownership? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ScuzzMonkey ( 208981 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @11:48AM (#3248173) Homepage
    Word on NPR this morning was that they were BOTH Vulcan funded companies. Are you sure that this is really a change in ownership, or just more of a consolidation?

    • Re:Sure about ownership? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Word on NPR this morning was that they were BOTH Vulcan funded companies.

      Moxi is not dead. In fact, it will live long and prosper.

  • Richard Bullwinkle's Post (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29, 2002 @11:48AM (#3248179)
    Just in case AVSForum's UBB forum dies from the slashdot effect, here is RB's post: Dear Friends,

    For those of you new to the world of TiVo, or who have never heard the story before, tomorrow is a very special day in the world of TiVo. Tomorrow is the 4th Annual Blue Moon Holiday.

    Tomorrow is not a blue moon, but 3 years ago, the last day in March was a blue moon. The historians of Silicon Valley will show that TiVo shipped Version 1.0 on March 31st, 1999, during the 2nd full moon of that month, and about a month before any competitor shipped a PVR.

    The story goes something like this. We had just come back from a very exciting CES show in January, and our booth had been located yards from ReplayTV. We know our competition. We had looked into their eyes.

    Our CEO, Mike, called a company meeting, and we all gathered in the big open common area. He told us he was proud of where we were, but that now was the time to show what we were made of. He told us that the company that shipped first was going to get the leap that would put them on top of this new and exciting category. In the middle of January Mike stated, in a fairly comprehendible Scottish accent, that we were going to ship on March 31st, or we were going to die trying.

    By my best calculations, I was the head of Quality Engineering at the time, we were about 4 or 5 months from really being ready to ship. I went back to my desk after that meeting and sunk into my chair. I just stared at the open TiVo in front of me. I couldn't imagine how that thing was going to be ready in just 2 and half months.

    You could feel the tension all over the company. You could hear the low murmurs of engineers grumbling to each other that it simply couldn't be done. It wasn't that we didn't agree that we needed to ship first. It was that we had already had a grueling Fall and Winter, and we were already pretty burnt out, and there just wasn't much more give in our lives. At the time I was regularly pulling 60, and often 80 hour work weeks. We all were.

    But a good friend, Steve, went back to his cube and noticed something. He had a giant lunar calendar on his cube wall, and he noticed that March 31st was a blue moon.

    The next day we had an engineering meeting to figure out the new schedule, and better understand how we were going to bring in the schedule by more than 50%. We played with numbers, lied a bit, and eventually we came up with a very hair-brained plan that given a little magic, a small manipulation of the space-time continuum, and a willingness to forgo sleep for a while, might just work. We needed a rallying cry, which for Engineering teams is often a good codename. Someone suggested Mission impossible, which was too negative, and then I told the team about what Steve had seen on his cube wall. Once in a blue moon, greatness happens, and we decided to codename TiVo 1.0 Blue Moon.

    At the end of that meeting one of our heads of engineering showed us the clip of Olivier's St. Crispin's Day Speech, from Henry V. (Yes, we're really that sappy.)

    quote:

    "But we in it shall be remember'd;
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition:*
    And gentlemen in England now a-bed
    Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

    I can't remember all that happened in those next months. Much of it was a sleepy dream. I remember a lot of days on end that coudn't be formed into weeks, because they all ran together. I remember that we also came together as a team. Engineers fixed bugs while everyone else, Marketing and Sales and executives, beat on their TiVos trying to break them.

    And we made it. We damn near killed ourselves and each other, but we shipped TiVo on March 31st, 1999. On that Wednesday we went to the plant, adorned our lab coats, and watched the very first TiVos roll off the line. We drank champagne, told stories, and watched like proud parents as the blue boxes came streaming off. We all signed the first few of them. Wouldn't you like to have one of those.

    The next day Mike told us how proud he was, how great we were, and that the doors would be locked on Friday. No one was to come to work. It was to be made a national holiday - the day that TiVo changed the way people thought about television forever. He told us it wasn't just our holiday, but that everyone in the world would celebrate it, too. I think Mike may have been tired, too, and maybe a lot of champagne.

    The TiVo folks did celebrate it, though. We let go. In fact, almost nine months to the day after we shipped Blue Moon 5 babies were born to TiVo employees within 5 days of each other. (True!) Sacred indeed. Anyway, to this day, we don't work on the last Friday of March each year, as it is known as the Blue Moon Holiday.

    So tomorrow, as you tune in to your TiVo to see what joy it has gotten you, remember my band of brothers. Pat your TiVo doll on the head and say, "well done." Post nice things here on the forum, and think twice about calling Customer Care. If you see someone who doesn't know about TiVo, tell them this tale. If you see a TiVo employee give them a hug.

    I leave you with my favorite Beetles quote:

    quote:

    "And in the end,
    the love you take
    is equal to the love you make."

    -The TiVo Minister of Propaganda and Evangelism

    • Just an aside, the term "blue moon" has come to refer to the second full moon in a solar month. But that's a modern distortion of its real meaning. More accurately, a blue moon is the fourth full moon in a season. Thus March 31 couldn't be a blue moon because it was only the second week of the spring season. A full moon on March 19 would probably be "blue"! (Yes, there are web sites that discuss this in detail but I can't remember them and am too lazy to google 'em.)

      Philosophically, does common misusage of a word or term create a new "correct" usage? Some of us old sticklers don't like it that way but we recognize that "it" happens.

      Musically, bom diddy bom di bang a dang dang a bing a dah bing ....
      • I'm just curious, did _you_ know the older definition of "blue moon" before the 1999 Sky & Telescope article pointing out the error from 1946?
      • Philosophically, does common misusage of a word or term create a new "correct" usage? Some of us old sticklers don't like it that way but we recognize that "it" happens.

        Yes. Otherwise, for example, we'd still be talking about napron strings instead of apron strings ("a napron" was corrupted into "an apron" a few hundred years ago).

        We'd also pronouce "knight" as something closer to "k-neecht", if I remember correctly from my medieval english lit courses.

        Language is not static. Any attempt to keep it that is self-delusion and Luddism.
        • Language is not static. Any attempt to keep it that is self-delusion and Luddism.

          I see you are trying out a new definition of Luddism/Luddite.

          Luddite Pronunciation Key (ldt)
          n.

          1.Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment.
          2.One who opposes technical or technological change.

          Language is not technology. Being a Luddite is not fear of all sorts of change. Heck, even the definition above (from dictionary.com) shows an original meaning and one from latter day usage.

          The original luddites did not oppose all technical or technological change. They did not destroy machines willy nilly. They were very specific. See: http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/E.+P.+Thompson+on+Lu ddites

          Also, the poster you were responding to was talking about the definition of word, not how it is pronounced.
          • 2.One who opposes technical or technological change.

            Language is not technology. Being a Luddite is not fear of all sorts of change. Heck, even the definition above (from dictionary.com) shows an original meaning and one from latter day usage.

            Perhaps it's not technological, but it sure is technical. ;)
          • >> Language is not static. Any attempt to keep it
            >> that is self-delusion and Luddism.

            > I see you are trying out a new definition of
            > Luddism/Luddite.

            Not really, it's definition 2 as you put forth:

            2.One who opposes technical or technological change.

            We can argue over whether language is a technology (from an anthropological point of view, I think it satisfies most of what I would consider criteria).

            But you gave a great example for my argument in the term "Luddite". Would you not agree that the original meaning was definition 1, and over time (and what would have appeared, at the time, to be a 'misuse' of the word) changed to additionally encompass definition 2.

            QED.
    • Scottish weather being what it is ...
    • Whoppee Shite. Now, you useless wankers, why don't you do a heros reach and support Canada? Eh??? Tossers.

  • Things have hardly collapsed! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Get Real! This isn't a collapse, on the contrary, its a huge boom! You make it seem like they're bankrupt or something?? I dunno, I'd be happy if MS bought my company. It seems to open up many more doors to get my product to consumers. Also what's with this sentence.

    "Last week, Digeo announced that it would not use Microsoft's interactive TV software."

    Does this make sense, since Diego is owned by Paul Allen? I say good for Moxi! Hope it works out well for them.

  • Slashdot Going Away! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Slashdot is disappearing, because BlockStackers sold out to Andover.net!

    Slashdot is disappearing, because Andover.net sold out to VA Linux!

    Slashdot is disappearing, because VA Linux got out of hardware!

    ahem.
  • MOXI really excited me. Oh well. Now I guess I'll have to cave in and go buy me a Tivo! I can't wait! :)
  • ... slashdot keeps posting articles like this... moxi was never a real product and they never even talked about anything revolutionary (replay 4000 has shipped with all those goodies 4 months ago)... so moxi, thank you for confirming my original thoughts, you were a vaporware and you have gone away... now it is left for two real pvr companies to work their magics and bring us some goodies... thank you tivo and replaytv, because of you, our world will never be the same again!

    • Re:tivo & replay (Score:4, Informative)

      by McSpew ( 316871 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @12:15PM (#3248350)

      ...replay 4000 has shipped with all those goodies 4 months ago....

      ReplayTV has wireless distribution via 802.11b? Moxi demoed that at CES. ReplayTV already has the ability to view still images and play MP3s and DVDs? Moxi demoed those features at CES.

      Yes, Moxi was showing a technology, not a product. And yes, their overblown claims about partnerships with cable and satellite companies look like wishful thinking more than actual business deals. Yes, at this point they are vapor. And yes, we all owe a debt of gratitude to ReplayTV and TiVo for bringing the PVR to the masses (albeit more slowly than they or we the converted would like). But let's at least acknowledge that they demoed features that aren't currently available on any shipping PVR.

      • ReplayTV has wireless distribution via 802.11b? Moxi demoed that at CES. ReplayTV already has the ability to view still images and play MP3s and DVDs? Moxi demoed those features at CES.

        Well it uses IP and ethernet, so if you blow $100~$200 on another 802.11 access point, yeah, sure. Er, to the extent it has an distribution at all (as I understand it you have to "send" the show from one unit, and accept it on the other, there isn't an ability to "pretend all the stuff on that Replay over there is all yours" -- which I think the MOXI does have). Of corse the MOXI still doesn't have what I want. You should be able to combine multiple units to transparently get multiple tuners (otherwise if you own say two TiVos you have the schedule things on them yourself TiVo#2 doesn't know that it found a show TiVo#1 recorded two days ago so it should record this less important show that neither TiVo got yet...which is all stuff a single TiVo would do already).

        The other thing that is a shame is MOXI isn't really talking about the core PVR features. How good is it at tracking shows? How good is it at resolving conflicts the way you want? How good is it at letting you know what it will do over the next few days, or why it won't get a show you want? Those are all things TiVo does stunningly well, which is why I prefer it to the Reply 4000 even though the 4000 can do way cooler things with the shows if it manages to record them. Likewise, I don't care that the MOXI can wirelessly send shows to my upstairs TV (even if I had one) if it can't actually record what I want! I'm not saying the MOXI will be bad at it, just that them not talking about that kind of feature makes me a little hesitant about the thing.

    • Re:tivo & replay (Score:2, Informative)

      by Bytenik ( 313942 )
      ReplayTV doesn't have a built-in cable box.

      Having the cable box integrated with the PVR is a HUGE advantage because it lets you record more than one digital cable program.

      Without some communication between the cable box and the PVR you can't change to the right channel at the right time.
      • right, and moxi "has" digital tuner ONLY, meaning you wont be able to record analog channels, meaning that you wont be able to record any network programming, which is where the most shows are... HBO repeats their shows 30 times a week anyway...
      • Agreed, in Britain we have something called Sky+. It has two sat. decoders and lets you record one channel whilst watchingpausing another. I ditched my Tivo in favour of it recently and I think it's great.

        Now all they need to do is combine the best features of Tivo with the Sky+ box and they have a clear winnner.

        Interactive TV in the UK is great - well, at least BSkyB seem to have it working better than most.

  • Press Release! Slashdotted! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29, 2002 @11:52AM (#3248208)
    Dang Adobe Acrobat, here it is !

    Sounds like a great opportunity for both companies, not "biting the dust" or whatever TaCO says! It is pretty apparent that Moxi never cared about Linux in and of itself, it was just a cheap means to an ends. We don't want companies like that promoting Leenux anyways!!!

    For Immediate Release
    D Di ig ge eo o a an nd d M Mo ox xi i M Me er rg ge e
    C Co om mb bi in ne ed d c co om mp pa an ny y b be ec co om me es s u un nd di is sp pu ut te ed d l le ea ad de er r i in n d de el li iv ve er ry y o of f
    a ad dv va an nc ce ed d m me ed di ia a c ce en nt te er r p pl la at tf fo or rm ms s a an nd d s se er rv vi ic ce es s
    KIRKLAND, Wash. and PALO ALTO, Calif., March 29, 2002 -- In a move that will
    strengthen and accelerate the development and delivery of advanced media center platforms and
    iTV services, Kirkland-based Digeo, Inc. and Palo Alto-based Moxi Digital, Inc. announced
    today the signing of a definitive agreement to join forces under the name of Digeo, Inc. Fortified
    by additional funding from lead investor Vulcan Inc., the merger will create the industry's clear
    leader in the delivery of integrated media center platforms and services for cable and satellite
    operators. Through this merger, the two companies will fuse their intellectual capital, market
    traction, proprietary technologies and respective product strengths. The new Digeo will pursue
    its vision of simultaneously enhancing and simplifying the consumer home entertainment
    experience by leveraging its strong partnerships with leading companies such as Motorola, Inc.
    (NYSE: MOT) and Charter Communications (NASDAQ: CHTR).
    The new company will be under the visionary leadership of Paul G. Allen in the role of Digeo's
    chairman of the board, as well as the guidance of board members Jim Billmaier, CEO of Digeo;
    Carl Vogel, CEO of Charter Communications; William Savoy, president of Vulcan; Edward
    Harris, senior investment analyst of Vulcan; and Kevin Fong, general partner of Mayfield.
    The new company's leadership team will be a mix of Digeo and Moxi(TM) senior management.
    Digeo CEO Jim Billmaier will become CEO of the new company. Moxi CEO Rita Brogley will
    become EVP of business development and marketing. Digeo President of Advanced Systems
    Larry Weber will continue in his role. Digeo SVP Bert Kolde will assume the role of COO.
    Moxi VP of Engineering Toby Farrand will become CTO.
    "This merger will allow us to deliver a family of media center platforms more rapidly," said Paul
    Allen. "Besides having the power of a PC, they are incredibly easy-to-use and can also run many
    exciting new applications that range from personal video recording to digital photo sharing to
    wireless home networking. Their introduction will define a new benchmark for the next
    generation of set-top boxes."
    "Digeo and Moxi have been working along parallel paths to implement very similar visions," said
    Digeo CEO Jim Billmaier. "Integration of the two companies will be swift, our efforts will be
    amplified, and we'll deliver an even better media center platform to market sooner. We believe
    these new platforms will be very attractive to cable and satellite companies looking for new
    revenue opportunities."
    "My goal for establishing a world-class technology company that would revolutionize home
    entertainment has been realized by Moxi joining forces with Digeo and Paul Allen," said Steve
    Perlman, founder and vice chairman of Moxi.

  • A Linux-based PVR used by MSFT's Paul Allen firm? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gruturo ( 141223 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @11:58AM (#3248240)
    ......
    It doesn't look so bad, unless they're buying it just to hide it into a drawer.
    It seems that Moxi is not dead, just been bought, and their technology IS gonna hit the shelves.
    And Digeo is a Paul Allen (MSFT) owned company.... which won't use Micro$oft's Interactive TV software... sounds interesting!
  • I was really looking foward to this product. Oh well I guess I have to create my own DVD, PVR for Linux. Any one know any good Linux TV capture cards?

  • Hmmm. The story I read this morning... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...doesn't really make it sound like Moxi is "going away". Read it here [sfgate.com].

    One other thing I find of interest are that while both the companies are heavily funded by Microsofts Paul Allen, both are using Linux as the base OS for their products.

    I'd be surprised if Moxi is dead. Their not planning to lay anyone off...


    • I'd be surprised if Moxi is dead. Their not planning to lay anyone off...


      Let me guess. You've never worked for a company involved in a merger or acquisition.

      If these were big publicly held companies they might trumpet the layoff angle before the deal went through so the analysts and stockholders would recognize there were potential cost savings. For example, anyone who saw the massive overlap in HP and Compaq wanted some reassurance that there would be product line consolidation accompanied by BIG layoffs. It's the only way the deal made financial sense.

      In this case it's much better to say nothing. Why scare the employees and encourage them to jump ship? It's much better if the company chooses who goes. Dump some after the merger goes through and the execs decide which product lines are being trashed. Then the managers swing the axe depending on who's least productive or most redundant. Or, maybe just on a petty personal grudge.
      • Let me guess. You've never worked for a company involved in a merger or acquisition.

        Hmmm. Did you bother reading the story AC posted a link to? To quote:

        The new Digeo will be headquartered in both Kirkland and Palo Alto. The firms say they will keep all 217 Digeo workers and 111 Moxi employees. About 30 Digeo workers stationed in Palo Alto will move to Moxi's building.

        So in effect, I believe they said something pretty specific. Not that that doesn't mean that layoffs won't occur in the future.

  • See the headline and think Apple was replacing the next version of Mac OS with CD burning software?

  • Merger announcement (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lumpish Scholar ( 17107 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @12:11PM (#3248327) Homepage Journal
    (which is really kind of hard to get to; they hide it behind some Javascript'ed popup):

    http://www.moxi.com/articles/press_Merge.htm [moxi.com]

    "The new company's leadership team will be a mix of Digeo and MoxiTM senior management.... Moxi CEO Rita Brogley will become EVP of business development and marketing.... Moxi VP of Engineering Toby Farrand will become CTO.... The new company will maintain dual headquarters in Kirkland and Palo Alto."
    • The new company will maintain dual headquarters in Kirkland and Palo Alto."

      And they actually believe this? ROFL.

  • I've used it. The stuff was crap. First, the multicast router (the thing that took the multicast packets and shoved them into the video signal) required no particular security settings to connect to. If someone was running it and you could get through their firewall, well, chances are you could start broadcasting your own content.

    It also didn't seem to want to let you go any furthur that embedding simple hyperlinks and graphics into the TV signal (since most of the clients didn't support anything other than that I suppose.) Since you might get about 2400 baud worth of bandwidth through the TV signal if you're lucky (due to TV stations using most of the VBI lines for test signals, etc), you couldn't push a lot of content down either. Since most people don't watch a TV station for more than 5-10 minutes most of the time, it probably wouldn't work to try to shove several megabytes down to the viewers since they wouldn't stick around long enough to get it all.

  • I realize that this may be a bit off-topic, but does anyone know when regular dual-tuner TiVos may come along? Of course, I'm aware that dual tuner DirecTiVos [tivo.com] already exist, but I'd rather not have to sign up for DirecTV just to get a dual-tuner TiVo :-/.

    And for those who are about to ask "Well, why not just get DirecTV for the DirecTiVo?", I live in a townhome with a roommate. And, we'd need two additional receivers (for our respective tv cards in our rooms) in addition to the DirecTiVO in the living room, and that would make for a whole lot of coax cabling running through the apartment and up/down the stairs (since I don't want to drill holes, as it is an apartment).

    • Re:Dual-tuner TiVOs? (Score:2, Informative)

      by stevel ( 64802 )
      Not anytime soon, though the Series 2 TiVo design could accomodate it. Such a beast would need two tuners AND two MPEG encoders, which would drive up the cost quite a bit. Also, only those with antenna or cable-without-box would be able to make real use of dual RF tuners - if you had a cable box, you'd be left out.

      I won't say "never", but it doesn't look like something that's on their radar screen right now.
    • Just thought I'd drop in here the comment that if you already have cable in your "townhome" it's possible to hook up DirecTV (or Dish) to the coaxial already in the place, meaning that you don't have to put in coax for rooms that already have cable access.

      As far as dual-tuner PVRs, I think it's going to be a while. The added complexity of the software combined with the necessity (for most of the new digital sources) of having multiple receivers hooked up to one box makes dual tuners a bit difficult, both in terms of programming and marketing. You're better off in any case just having multiple Tivos (or Replays) on multiple TVs. Not only do you get the benefit of recording two shows at the same time but you can watch two different things.

      -Aaron

  • Being acquired by and funded by a billionaire is hardly a bad event for the company in question. Who approves such stupidly misleading headlines?
    • Being acquired by and funded by a billionaire is hardly a bad event for the company in question. Who approves such stupidly misleading headlines?

      You're confusing the company with its owners. We've all seen plenty of entrepreneurs walk away with big bucks from a deal like this while the product and the employees are left to swirl around the drain.

  • just wondering what happens now with the Moxi-RealNetworks deal to embed Real codecs in Moxi. perhaps this is just a transparent plot by Microsoft (and Microsoft concerns, i.e. Paul Allen?) to keep their competition out of the PVR/streaming market?

  • (I love buts..)

    If Diego has absorbed them and DOESN'T plan to use the M$ product, doesn't this mean that they might be looking to use the MOXI product in their own?

    RonB

  • Open source PVRs? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kslater ( 142595 )
    I'm surprised that given all the interest from the Open Source community that a OSS based PVR isn't being worked on? I looked on SourceForge and found OpenPVR, but it doesn't look to be moving (in any direction)..
    • I'm surprised that given all the interest from the Open Source community that a OSS based PVR isn't being worked on?

      Getting a lot of guide data in machine readable form is kind of hinkey (you can get it from web sites, probably violating their TOS, and more over if a whole bunch of people start doing it they will just start making the HTML really hard to parse)...plus there is a ton of polish on things like the TiVo...plus the existing PVRs are pretty cheap, cheaper then an MPEG encoder on a PCI card plus a hard drive...plus all the smart folks are out hacking ethernet cards into the TiVo already so they can suck all the data they want off it, and schedule programming form the web already :-)

      Oh yeah, plus I saw about 3 such projects a year or so ago. Don't know where they are now though.

      • Not to mention that there are PC cards with this functionality (except for controlling outboard boxes so far) like this [ati.com] for analog-type cable and this [digitalconnection.com] which will timeshift HDTV content (terrestrial only so far). The latter's software is even open source for the OSS-heads out there.

        -Aaron

  • SLASHDOT is Toast (Score:3, Funny)

    by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Friday March 29, 2002 @02:31PM (#3249143) Journal
    After all, they were bought by another company, OSDN.

    Yeah...
  • See this NEWS.COM [com.com] story. Looks like both companies are just fine, and it seems to make a considerable amount of sense.
  • How many episodes would fit on a Tivo?
  • BusinessWeek published an article [businessweek.com] on Moxi's death spiral about a month ago. They found typical dot-bomb out-of-control expenses, and slimy things like renting expensive office space from insiders. Worse, someone at Moxi impersonated a BW reporter in a witch hunt [businessweek.com] to try to root out who was talking to the press.

    Good riddance.
  • Moxi? I'm more concerned about Moxy [fruvous.com]

    They haven't had a gig together in ages. They were truly one of the coolest bands ever.

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