I caught TechTV's selection for best of CES on Techlive earlier an dit got me to thinking about the state of PVR's. I like them and would like to get one but none of them seem quite right for me. I decided to look into them again and here's what I found:

TIVO was the first in the field and unfortunately they're showing their age. The capacity still tops out at about 30 hours and it only records one show. They do have a 60 hour unit comming out in Feb. for $400. I seem to recall some mention of dual recording being available later this year but now I can't find it.

The ReplayTV 4000, now here is an interesting PVR. Capacity starts at 40 hours and goes up to 320. Add in an ethernet interface for streaming video from one unit to another and you have an even better device. The only problem I have with it is that it can only record one show at a time. Price starts at $700.

And now the best of CES Moxi. Now here is a company thats strting to get it right. 2 to 4 tuners, mp3 support, 1394 based storage expansion, support for wireless networking, and its able to share any combination of live and recorded A/V with up to 4 TVs. Unfortuanetly Moxi will not be making these boxes just licensing the tech. It will be up to the makers such as Echostar to determine the exaxt capabilities including the recording options. It remains to be seen how good this will really be.

Of these, the Moxi system comes the closest to being perfect but it could be killed by poor implementations. Add a second recorder to the ReplayTV unit and you've got something that could handle my viewing habits. Still, none of these is quite right yet so I'll continue to wait and keep using my trusty VCRs.