Moxi HD DVR - Page 102

Because logging into moxi.com and trying to schedule a recording from an iPhone doesn't work - the guide doesn't scroll right so you can't access anything but the first few channels.

I wrote the app because I own a Moxi and saw that it was lacking support for the iPhone platform. I'm not in it for profit but doing development and support is not free and I'm not willing to pay for that out of my own pocket - I am not affiliated with moxi and don't have the kind of cash flow they do

In the end the market will decide whether the additional features and ease-of-use of the app vs. the website provide enough incentive for users to pay for the app and whether I can re-coup the money I spent on development so far.

I couldn't find the AV-GP WD20EVDS for sale? Do you have a link?

I did find the WD20EARS Caviar Green for sale I might buy a couple for my server. The AV-GP drives are rated for DVR use I'd like to stay with those for the Moxi verses the Green drives.

Dave

yeah that's the one. I wasn't aware there was more than one 2TB Green drive.
and my email from them said 72 hour sale

Dave

I tried it out at my friends house and it worked perfectly on the first shot. It took around 35 minutes from start of the initialization routine till it finished. None of the 3 lights were on, flashing or otherwise.

Another interesting thing, after I was done setting this drive up, the old drive wouldn't boot up anymore. Not sure if that was a quirk or if once you set up a drive on a particular unit, only that drive will boot. I only tried that once as I really didn't care about the old drive anymore.

In any case, I used a 2T WD20EVDS and it is whisper quiet and runs really cool. Btw, zipzoomfly still has it for $159 before a $15 rebate. It has a 32M cache compared to the 8M of the stock piperline.

Maybe one of these days I'll pick up a WD20EARS or WD20EADS as a spare.

packetlosss,

I think it maybe a fluke. The old drive should boot up fine. It could be that all the resets you did at home.

WD20EVDS

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...rodlist=search

Tiger seems to have the best price for the WD20EARS. Keep in mind the EARS uses 4k block sizes and apparently doesn't work will for some things. You can however switch it back via a jumper. Haven't tried one of these out yet so I can't comment on how good they are. They are probably cheaper because of all the bad press they are getting. If anyone has tried one of these out and had good results, please let me know.

LOL, that is true, I must have reset it about 30 - 40 times trying to get it to work

Most likely it just needed the cable modem to be reset. It seems to be very finicky in getting an IP address at times.

Finally got my CableCard today, the tech was pretty cool, in the 30 seconds it took me to herd the dogs into another room he was already in the right menu and on the phone. At first I was getting "You do not subscribe to this channel" on every channel but another call cleared that up - they must have provisioned it wrong or something.

I also got my MoCA adapters and set up the Mates, plus installed PlayOn - so at last I'm fully functional

Obviously I don't have too much of a basis for a review yet, but I'm definitely impressed with the functionality - it certainly does everything it's supposed to and being able to stream HD to the other rooms is great. However, my enthusiasm is a bit tempered by the interface; I guess I have a couple weeks left to see if I can deal with it and/or believe that things will improve. My main complaint is the general sluggishness - I do notice that the mates are a lot more responsive so I have to wonder if they should have beefed up the hardware in the main unit to compensate for all the extra I/O it has to do. I think the UI is kind of obtuse; I can probably get used to most of its quirks but I think there's huge room for improvement without any major redesign. I'd just describe it as lacking polish - not visually as much as the general usability. I feel like there are 100 little (and not so little) things that irk me, but my previous lists of issues didn't seem to generate too much discussion so I'll spare the details unless someone is interested. I wish there was a better way to communicate these kinds of things to Moxi but their support doesn't seem to be geared towards that. Maybe it's just me...

BTW, the disappearing Moxi menu problem happens to me a lot (probably 10x already). I may have stumbled upon a slight simplification of the workaround procedure posted earlier that doesn't require pressing buttons "in the dark". Instead of pressing the lens button once to get to Recorded TV, press it twice to bring up the grid guide, then hit Info and pick "see all times".

This is based on a sample size of 1 so I'm not sure if it works all the time.

Well, my mysterious missing channels are back. I seem to have channels disappear off of the guide like they don't even exist. It's always the same channel numbers under 100 and sometimes a few of the HD channels over 100. Had TW replace the TA and CableCard a number of times thinking it was that. Then I finally tried the CableCard in another device to make sure it wasn't loosing the channels. Of course all the channels were there. Put it back into the Moxi, they are still missing. So it's definitely a Moxi problem.

No one at Moxi seems to have an answer either. So the Moxi box has officially fallen in the $600 "piece of junk" category for me. TW's boxes may have next-to-no functionality, but at least they always pick up every channel. I can't recommend the box to anyone either. I had a couple of friends that were interested but I'm going to tell them to stay away from it unless they was to spend a good hour every day rebooting and calling support trying to find their missing channels. Very disappointing. Okay, rant over.

'Cause it lost some channels? I had posted a while ago that with TW here in California, I had exactly the same issue - I lost most of the channels from 2-100.

It was tough getting them to realize, but the CC just needed to be reinitialized, and then refreshed. I had to talk to one of their supervisors to get this simple thing done but when they did, all the channels came back. I doubt there's anything wrong with your Moxi.

Dave

No mention at all of the tuning adapter issue... which I consider quite serious. Of course, the issue applies to areas using SDV, and my impression is the majority of cable system customers are in areas where SDV is used... who are HD equipped.

Very little discussion revolving around what it may or may not take for Moxi to eliminate the issue by having that function on-board. Somehow I "think" it's not that particularly great a technical challenge, or would add all that much to it's price (keep in mind the cable cos seem to be giving out mostly 2 tuner TA's for free). So what ARE the issues there?

PS: it also occurs to me that this COULD be a HUGE competitive advantage over TiVO. Whoever gets on board TA functionality could win big, the size being how long it takes the "other" to implement such a thing. This specific issue is not new, it's been around for more than 2 years already...

Moxi has total control here... a LOT of websites provide alternatives to smartphones in their web applications without having to write an actual app. Can't say which method is "better" but there ARE at least 2 ways to deal with it.

Indeed this is kinda odd. It's POSSIBLE that there's some link between the box and the drive that is established at the install process. We "know" cable co boxes have this, you can't take a functioning drive from one DVR to another. Then again, this isn't exactly the same as you're only dealing with the same box... so I'm ONLY speculating.

You may want to consider that old drive as a kind of back-up. In case things start happening you suspect may be due to the new drive, you CAN pop the old drive back in, do the install thing a and see what happens.

Thanks!

I find TW's phone support people to be, at best, ill informed.

They also told me that using a cable card wouldn't net me the premium channels (like HBO). That's a deal killer for me as I love to record some of their series (i.e. True Blood).

They also said the PPV couldn't be accessed, which is OK by me as I never order any PPV shows.

Like I said, I've been through several cable cards and I tried the current one in a different device and all the channels were there. There's something with the way the Moxi interacts with the cable card where it has trouble picking up some of the channels sometimes. So I'm fairly certain it's something with the Moxi. Moxi even verified to me that they need to escalate the problem to a higher priority to figure out why it's doing that. So pardon me for being frustrated when many of the channels I'm paying for seem to randomly come and go on their own.

When you tried it in the other box, did you leave it there for a few days? There really isn't anything special about cablecards and the device just pulls the channels from it. It could very well be something going on with TW.

When you switched devices and the channels came up, did you immediately switch it back and see if they came up on the Moxi?

Are any of the missing channels clear QAM? Depending on what your 2nd device is, maybe it picks up clear QAM directly and not off the cablecard (especially if it's a TW box).

It could very well be a bug in the Moxi software, but it could just as likely be TW.

Can the Moxi "cascading" screen saver be set to time-out on paused shows in X minutes?

The issue is that CableLabs won't allow a 2-way 3rd party device to be certified unless it is Tru2way. However, Tru2way has its own licensing and certification issues such that almost nobody short of TV manufacturers would want to implement it due to the amount of control that must be ceded to the MSO in regard to guide data and interface specifications. Hopefully the FCC will follow through on its statements to eliminate CableLabs' strangehold on so many aspects of cable-ready 3rd party hardware...and implement the IP-SDV technology in a timely manner.

I can't say for certain there isn't anything wrong with how the moxi works with the CC, but I do know it was TW changing their lineup, that triggered the loss of my channels, and reinitializing, and then refreshing the CC fixed it.

It's simple, but the TW techs can't seem to grasp that the steps have to be done, and in that order. In my case they did the same they did for you Kzy, they put in a new TA and CC which did nothing.

When you ask them to please reinitialize and refresh the CC, they say either "I tried that already" or "I don't need to do that because I put a new one in"
The tech left my house without getting it working, but his supervisor called me the next day. He had them reinitialize and then refresh my card and a day later my channels came back.

I've got his number and I've been meaning to call and ask him how, should this ever happen again, I can get the card refreshed without having a tech come out - it's not necessary. I'll post back Kzy if I learn anything that could help you.

FYI what was happening when my CC had lost sync was that it was seeing most of the channels between 2 and 100 as analog.

Dave

There's no reason that the cablecard won't get you premium channels such as HBO (protection of such channels is sort of the whole point of cablecard). However, if those channels are SDV channels, you will of course also need a tuning adapter to tune to them (so the statement is technically true...a cable card *by itself* wouldn't be able to do the job). Mostly, it sounds like a case of a clueless representative talking out of his/her arse.

If they are using whole-disk encryption (or even just partition encryption), this is a completely expected situation. If a drive is *cloned* bit-by-bit using dd or whatever...then the disks should be swappable no problem. But a FFP-initialization likely creates new disk keys, so the old disk would be unreadable. Just a theory, as I've not taken a look at it that closely first-hand.

Well, I went outside between rain showers yesterday to see if I could figure out where the cable enters the house -- any tips on how to tell which is the cable? It seems that everything enters the house in the same area, and they all look pretty much the same because the house painters painted over them a couple of years ago. Because we've had phone problems, I can identify that box. But, I have no idea what the rest of the stuff is.

My dh "thinks" the box above the phone box "might" be for the cable -- would it be in a box on the exterior of the house? If so, it seems to have one of those twist-tie locks . . .

TWC will be back out (yet again) tomorrow afternoon, and I'm trying to be optimistic, but I know this intermittent problems are a PITA. For awhile later Friday, all three of our important "local" HD channels were coming in fine -- this was after I hooked all the splitters back into the setup.

However, Moxi tech support had us reboot both Moxis because streaming to the Moxi in the living room from the Moxi in the bedroom wasn't working -- it was like it was in ultra-slow motion (streaming from the living room Moxi to the bedroom Moxi & family room Mate is fine; and streaming from the bedroom Moxi to the family room Mate is fine). [The logs have been sent to engineering -- any suggestions on what the problem could be?]

Shortly after that, all three were missing again, but by later in the afternoon/evening, one was back -- we're still missing the other two.

OK, we've figured out that my dh is correct -- the cable enters a box on the exterior of the house before coming back out of it and going back up the exterior of the house into the attic crawl space. The box does indeed have a plastic twist-tie type lock on it. DH informs me there's no way he's going up into the attic crawl space "today," so I'm stuck waiting for TWC tomorrow afternoon.

Precisely. Well said. Dollars to donuts that's exactly what the Moxi is doing. At least that's my best guess.

I only left it long enough to see all the channels come through. I put it back in the Moxi and the channels were still missing. A few of the channels are broadcast channels, but most are encrypted basic cable channels that are not there. I get about 12 of the normal 70 channels below 100 and it's always the same ones that are gone. It has to be something with the software on the Moxi. I hope Moxi can fix it otherwise the box isn't too much use to me if I can can't get those channels, many of which are not available in HD so that's the only place I can watch them (particularly Comedy Central).

Many of the problems with cable cards are caused by poor signal level. Could be the other device you tried it on has a stronger signal.

Like I said above, the problem with my Moxi, and I assume it's the same as Kyz has because it's the same channels, was that the digital simulcast was not getting through. The other box you tried it in may have an analog tuner.

Again, I would bet you just need your box reinitialized and refreshed and validated.
Dave

I've verified the signal level is actually right in the proper range. Not too strong and not too week.


Tried that earlier today. Didn't help. I still think it's the Moxi software. One of their engineers is going to look more closely at it tomorrow.

sigh...... that's exactly what they told me too, but it turned out they hadn't. There's something about TW's training, it seems, that tells them they don't need to do A,B, C in that order as moxi recommends so they just say "I tried that" to humor you.

Look, you had the exact same channels cut out at the same time I did, if you don't think you have the same issue then OK, I won't try to help anymore But just to humor me why don't you go to Moxi.com and see if the channels are there, but appear as analog. That would explain why your analog box could receive them, and it's also the same problem I had, and as I said, the supervisor from TW did init, refresh, validate, in that order, and wouldn't you know it, the prblem was fixed. It's just hell getting the TW guys to do those three steps in that order.

Thankfully, once the boss did it, my moxi has been working great.

Dave