HAVA Titanium HD TV Device

by Monsoon

Product Details

• Item Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00171FAZ6
• Item model number: 052507HX
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,534 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 14, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description The Monsoon HAVA Titanium HD lets you extend your home theater experience, both within your home and beyond! The HAVA accepts an HD video source and streams it throughout your home in DVD-quality video. You can also watch and control programming on any PC or mobile phone with a broadband Internet connection. With two USB ports built-in, you can add a dongle for wireless streaming or an external hard drive for PVR backups.

The Monsoon HAVA Titanium HD: Streams your HD television programming throughout your home network in DVD-quality video. Automatically adjusts the encoding for smooth video delivery depending on your network bandwidth. Lets you watch local programming on your cell phone or from anywhere else you have broadband Internet. Has two USB ports for upgrades such as a wireless network dongle or an external hard drive.

You'll have control of your A/V components from your computer, complete with customizable virtual remote. View larger.

With two USB ports, you can connect a hard drive or a wireless dongle for wireless video streaming. View larger.

Stream Live Programming Around Your House
By connecting your HD video source to the HAVA Titanium HD, you can stream live television to multiple PCs around your house using your home network. You no longer need to worry about TV connections and set-top boxes. Streams come in at DVD-quality wherever you are in your home, and multiple users around your house can watch/record the same program at the same time thanks to VBooster Multicast technology.

View Television Remotely From Virtually Anywhere
The HAVA Titanium HD allows you to watch your local television programming, or programming from another connected A/V device, from anywhere in the world with a broadband Internet connection. As you are watching, other members of the household can also watch the same programming on the home network. You can even remotely control the settings for virtually any A/V device, including PVRs, satellite TV, and digital cable boxes; a customizable virtual remote will show up on screen allowing for complete control of the device. It's like having a remote control that works everywhere!

Works as a PVR!
The HAVA Titanium HD can also function as a PVR. You can record, pause, fast forward, and rewind live TV right on your computer. Recorded shows are stored on your PC's hard drive, or on an external USB drive (sold separately). After you've recorded shows, you can burn them onto DVD for archiving or viewing during those instances when you don't have an Internet connection. The HAVA works out of the box with Microsoft MCE, or you can install the included PVR software for non-MCE PCs.

Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Media Center PCs and Notebooks
When you connect HAVA Titanium HD to your network, you are in essence creating a virtual TV tuner for Media Center PCs. This eliminates the need for a separate TV tuner card, and the need for any hard-wired cable connection.

Using the HAVA mobile player software, you can watch television on your cell phone.

Two USB Ports for Upgradeability and Additional Functionality
The Titanium HD has two built-in USB ports, allowing for upgrade possibilities. By adding a wireless dongle, you can add wireless video streaming. You can also connect an external USB hard drive for use with the PVR functionality, allowing for more recording time than just that on your computer's hard drive.

High-Quality Viewing
By employing the standard MPEG-2 format, the HAVA Titanium HD achieves the best possible video quality over a home network. Television programming that is streamed through your home network boasts DVD-quality clarity. The video is also simultaneously encoded with the MPEG-4 standard, which has a higher compression and allows for remote viewing over a broadband Internet connection by a single client.

Thanks to the VBooster technology, all the users on the home network can experience high-quality video. While watching video, users can simultaneously use the Internet for regular uses such as web browsing, email, chatting, printing, transferring files, etc. The encoding is automatically adjusted based on the available bandwidth to ensure steady and smooth video all the time.

The HAVA Titanium HD requires a home network with a 10/100 base-T router with an available Ethernet port, a broadband Internet connection (300Kbps upstream recommended) for remote viewing, and a PC with Windows XP/Vista and a minimum of an Intel Pentium 1.2 GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM for XP and 1GB of RAM for Vista, 75 MB of disk space for the HAVA software, an Ethernet connection, DirectX 9-class video card, and an audio output.

The HAVA Titanium HD is backed by a 1-year warranty.

What's in the Box
HAVA Titanium HD unit, two composite cables, Ethernet cable, power adapter, IR blaster cable, two component cables, quick start guide, software CD.

Stream television to computers in your home, or to your cell phone wherever you are.

Product Description

Hava Titanium HD Watch and control your live home TV from anywhere in the world on a broadband connected PC or cell phone. Record TV programs to your PC hard disk or to an external USB attached hard disk locally or remotely. Upgradeable to wireless with the addition of the USB WiFi Kit allowing your stream live TV wirelessly around your home. This product is upgradeable to WiFi with the addition of the WiFi Kit (PT# 052507HK)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HAVA Titanium HD TV Place Shifting Device - SLING KILLER!, September 2, 2008

By 

Igor Leizerovich "Igor Leizerovich" (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HAVA Titanium HD TV Device (Personal Computers)

Monsoon Hava Titanium HD

Whether you call it place shifting or remote viewing, there is a growing community of users around the world. While there are a number of products that make it possible to stream your home TV from any location via broadband Internet connection or LAN the top and only three brands are SLINGBOX, HAVA and SONY TV ANYWHERE.

Specifications wise, Hava products exceed all the functionality that the Slingbox able to offer at this point(as they do not have an HD compatible product as of yet). To start off, Hava has a built-in 802.11g wireless capability, (Slingbox is Ethernet only). Secondly, Hava products allow multi streaming / casting, within your home network, this means that multiple users are able to successfully watch and control the stream at the same time while one person watches remotely via the Internet (Slingbox or SONY allow only one stream / user at a time).

Not only HAVA does HD it also provides better picture quality than the current slingbox models in standard definition, unlike the slingbox it does not use a windows media decoder but instead decided to go with MPEG-2 over a home networkor MPEG-4 video over the internet.

I have noticed some customers complaining about issues with the installation. From my experience, I haven't had any issues with the device, its drivers or the player; a tweak here and there but nothing major.

The reason I am able to compare it with the Slinbox, is because I've been using the Slingbox Pro prior to the HAVA purchase. It is important to mention that Hava also includes two USB ports and an option of having a PVR (external hard drive enclosure unit connected to one of the USB ports). Latest software update provides users with an option of having to use the memory key instead of a hard drive.

Aside from everything I have said, each unit has its advantages as well as disadvantages, obviously. It is important to note that the remote compatibility / device library for the slingbox is considerably larger, that said, it is hard not to notice that HAVA engineers have been working on and producing great results within the past year on this issue. Secondly, Slinbox user interface is better designed from a visual standpoint and is easier to use than Hava. Remote response time for the Sling is vastly superior as well.

Overall, HAVA is not only much lower priced in comparison to the slingbox but also offers a significant number of features that the slingbox simply does not. I can easily say without a doubt, it is a an "overall better unit" that shows great promise.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Quality Video and Responsive support team.., September 30, 2008

By 

Fawad A. Khan "Plathiuos" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HAVA Titanium HD TV Device (Personal Computers)

I purchased Hava Platinum about a month ago. It worked perfectly from within my home but I had some difficult getting it to work remotely. The problem was linked to D-Link router. The support team was very responsive and made all attempts to resolve my issues. The Video quality is great and I can stream to multiple clients at the same time.

Pros:
Quality.
Good Support.
Nice Integration for various remotes.

Cons.
I took away one start for the following.
Player (for local viewing) always writes the video stream to disk for a configurable time.
This can cause a skip now and then in the video stream.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good product, poor documentation, March 20, 2009

By 

Saverio Strangis - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HAVA Titanium HD TV Device (Personal Computers)

The hardware performs very well, except that it is hot and I'm worried how long is it going to last. Installation was slow but smooth. What I don't really like is the fact that it is impossible to get any pdf document from the manufacturer, except for the quick installation guide. Every single question you have has to be solved through the forum or custumer service contact.

Updated review after 2 months:
1. Not every external USB HD is compatible with this unit. If you own a USB storage check their list of compatible drives. Note that without an external USB drive attached it can't record scheduled shows.
2. Although is straitght forward there are no guides on how to access it remotely on another PC. It took me many hours of browsing to find out how. You'll have to install the player and set up the remote server as the source. It's a bit hidden in my opinion. Is not obvious that you have to install the full package instead of just the player when you want to access remotely. But, in the end, it works great. Even from my Windows mobile 6 phone. The remote control is very complete.
3. Be aware that if you want to use it with Windows Media Center. You will need a Media Center Remote. You don't need to use it, because the HAVA has an IR blaster. But MCE doesn't let you access live TV through an STB if it doesn't detect the remote. I was able to trick it setting up the live TV as an analog cable, while I'm waiting for my remote order. HAVA should automatically trick MCE to avoid beeing forced to add a remote that you may not use. On the other hand it is Microsoft fault too. If you want to use it only as a media center TV tuner, you may find better options. As an hybrid for MCE and remote TV is great.
4. Recording works great.
5. The manufacturer should consider developing a TV server to use with networked media that don't have MCE. MCE is very limited controlling your STB. HAVA has a much better control.

I'was considering to return it due to the delay when pushing a remote control button (about 5 seconds), it is a bit frustrating. But I've finally got used to it. It's reasonable because of the buffering. I'm very happy with it.