The Moxi DVR and its new extender (right), the Moxi Mate.
(Credit: Digeo)When we last heard from Digeo in April, the company was adding several digital media extras to its flagship Moxi DVR. Flash forward to August, and the company is back with more updates, the biggest of which is a new hardware announcement. The Moxi Mate is an "extender" that adds multiroom capability to any household with a Moxi DVR. The box is basically a thin client (no hard drive) that can access recorded content from the main Moxi, as well as all of the system's online and home networking digital extensions (Rhapsody, PC-based media streaming, PlayOn content such as Netflix and Hulu, and so forth).
Sounds great, but there are some significant caveats that prospective buyers should know. Most importantly: the Moxi Mate can't currently support the streaming of live TV--only programs that you've previously recorded on the main Moxi DVR. And while you could theoretically have several Moxi Mates in a household, Digeo currently supports only one of them streaming from the main Moxi at a time. It also doesn't autoresume recorded programs where you've left them on the main Moxi; you'll have to fast-forward back to the location. Of course, all of these issues could possibly be addressed in future firmware updates--but those are the product's initial notable limitations. The other big deal: the Mate doesn't have a built-in Wi-Fi connection, so you'll need to supply an Ethernet network connection. On the plus side: the video streaming is said to be nearly instantaneous, unlike TiVo's multiroom solution, which requires the video files to be copied to the hard drive in another room first prior to viewing.
Speaking of firmware updates: the latest Moxi update (being pushed out to DVR owners between now and the end of the week) adds a variety of small upgrades. Among them:
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