Gizmodo: hava

Hava's Sociable TV Shares Live TV With Everybody

Jason Chen — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:54:56 EST

Hava, the lesser-known video streaming system, is going to be doing some crazy social TV sharing called Sociable TV.

Zatz Not Funny says that their upcoming service will be able to share live or DVR content with either a group of people or the entire world, just via their web portal. This brings us one step closer to my dream of being able to watch East Coast TV at the same time as my friends on the East Coast, with me on the West Coast.

Sociable TV is supposed to hit mid-year, and they've got an iPhone client in the works as well. [Zatz Not Funny]

Hava Finally Goes Outside Windows But Only To Symbian

Christopher Mascari — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:50:03 EDT

Monsoon Multimedia, makers of Hava the other place shifter, have announced they are bringing Hava Mobile Player to S60 devices. The announcement comes Tomorrow at the S60 Summit in Barcelona, where the free app which gives S60 mobiles the ability to watch and control their Hava boxes will be demonstrated. As of now, Hava players are only available for Windows and Windows Mobile, so it's good to see that Hava is actually working on making their product accessible to other users. Now what about Mac users? [PR Newswire via MobileCrunch]

Monsoon Hava Titanium HD (Verdict: Some Nice Features, But Not a Sling Killer)

Adrian Covert — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:22:41 EST

The Good: The Hava Titanum HD has component HD support and Wi-Fi via USB dongle out of the box (a must for my Home Theater Setup, where the router is in another room). As a point of comparison, the Sling Pro requires a $50 attachment for HD support and can only communicate wirelessly via power lines. The Hava also allows you to pause, rewind and fast forward, record to your hard disk and burn your recordings to DVD. Video playback is generally smooth and uninterrupted. It supports simultaneous viewing from local (unlimited viewers) and and remote (single viewer) connections. Future expansion possibilities include hard drives and digital tuners.

The Average: Video quality on the Hava Titanium HD is good overall, but the Sling Pro is a little better, with less artifacting than the Hava. Software is adequate on the Hava, but not quite as slick as Sling's interface.

The Bad: The Hava Titanium HD's on screen remote can be unresponsive, at times taking up to 10 seconds to respond to a command (compared to the 1-2 second delay of the Sling). Audio is noticeably inferior on the Hava, sounding tinny and lacking bass. When connections speeds slow, the Hava Titanium will often slow down the voices on screen, making certain females sound like trannies (that one permanently ruined a few fantasies for me). Works with Windows only, leaving Mac users in the cold. It's a bit more expensive than the Sling at $249, but also doesn't require a $50 add-on.

Conclusion: The Hava Titanium HD is an overall decent product, but the price, poor sound quality and lack of Mac support still make the Sling Pro a better deal.

Hava Place Shifter Reviewed (Verdict: Ain't No Slingbox)

Jason Chen — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:00:51 EST

Dave Zatz, Slingbox fan, tested out the Hava location shifter and confirmed our earlier thoughts that it didn't quite measure up to the Slingbox. The Hava does come with WiFi and live stream recording abilities, but its software was limited, there was no Mac support, and it had trouble with streaming over EV-DO.

In addition, the Hava wasn't nearly as customizable as the Slingbox. It has no real favorites, you can't tweak its settings, there's not enough IR codes for your current boxes, and a few other shortcomings that resulted because it's a first generation release. Perhaps after an iteration or two, Hava can pose more of a threat to Sling's location-shifting dominance. – Jason Chen

Hands on with HAVA [Zatz not Funny]

Monsoon HAVA Reviewed: Not a Slingbox Killer

Louis Ramirez — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:13:51 EST

Monsoon's HAVA video streamer managed to create a nice buzz when it was first announced at CES, thanks in part to its built-in wireless and ability to support muticasting (two features its main competitor, Slingbox, doesn't support). But now that the device is shipping and the smoke has cleared, it seems Slingbox has nothing to worry about. The folks at CNET have given the HAVA a complete run through and decided it's simply not as polished as its competitor. Its design, for one, gives "Scientific Atlanta cable boxes a run for its money on the ugly scale." Performance-wise it gave them no trouble streaming content (whether wired or wirelessly), but in the end its performance couldn't top the Slingbox, though it's a better choice than the Sony alternative. – Louis Ramirez

Monsoon HAVA HD [via CNET]