Customer Reviews

HAVA Titanium HD TV Device

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

With DirecTV at home and Cox Cable in my weekend apartment I was tired of paying $200+ every month to watch TV. I read reviews and concluded that a Hava Titanium HD installed at the house would save me over $1000 a year by cancelling Cox at the apartment and watching DirecTV over the Internet on my 70" JVC 1080p display.

After buying the Hava, I was so disappointed with the performance that I returned it for a refund. However, I decided to give the Sling Solo a try and the difference is amazing.

Over the Internet, Hava High Definition channels are streamed at around 350Kbs giving a resolution of around 240 lines - not even standard definition, never mind HD. Images were broken up with ghosting, painful to watch. In less than an hour of viewing, the Slingbox hit transfer rates of over 1200Kbs and picture quality was excellent.

The Hava on screen remote control for DirecTV has a generic skin - the Slingbox one is identical to the actual DirecTV remote. Furthermore, although the Hava remote can record selections on the DirecTV DVR, it has no way of viewing or playing those recorded programs . . . Hellooooo !

The reaction time in using the Hava remote is very sluggish compared with the Slingbox and the Slingbox has an onscreen program guide independant of the remote DVR which can be customized for favorites and allows single mouse click selection of channels to be viewed.

In a nutshell, the difference between Hava HD and Slingbox Solo is like night and day. I have to thank Amazon for their generous return policy that allowed me to check out both brands without obligation. They even paid the freight cost for me to return the Hava unit for a full refund. Thank you Amazon.

I haven't used much place-shifting hardware. I've used software to do roughly the same thing before though. I have to say that this is an excellent product considering the features and price compared to the other place-shifting manufacturers. Setup was a GUI guided interface that had everything updated and running in about 10 minutes. I had some issues getting a good picture on my cell phone and I still haven't gotten WMC to play nice with it but it comes with software that is tremendously amount more customizable. I really love being able to watch my satellite TV anywhere I go and it makes those monthly fees much more worthwhile. I'm glad I looked around before I got a slingbox.

This is a very nice device, but its not really HD. The only way "HD" applies is that it supports wide formats. However it does not support sending or recording resolutions over D1 (DVD-style). Also, although it will record at 8 Mbps, it will not do so to NTFS filesystems on the USB drive, so its limited to 4GB which is less than a movie.

I own the hava titanium HD it is replacing my slingbox. I must say I am very happy with the software, it must have improved since others reviewed it. You do not have to have a hard drive attached to the unit to do recording, it can be done on the PC hosting the player. The recording quality is very good. As far as the support, the reason why I switched from slingbox is due to the fact that they do not update their mobile nokia player, and they do not even read their support requests or forums. The slingbox forum has people blasting them and they never respond. They also do not say anything about the timeframe for supporting new phones when you mail support.

Hava on the other hand answers their mail, is active on their forums and has a help line open 12 hrs a day. The instructions are easy. The only bad thing is that they do not have a mac client for their software. I am running it on windows 7 and it runs perfectly. They also have scheduling of recordings and tivo like functions on their player (go back in time, go to live) Overall a great product and I have not had any problems that have been listed by the bad reviews.

I Use HAVA Titanium HD TV Device to record footage of the video games i play on my Xbox360 and PS3 and so far i am extremely satisfied. Sure its not the best quality but for it's price, you can never go wrong.

The video is not as good as the SlingBox AV. I have both units the only thing I like about the Hava is the recording. I paid $99.00 for the unit, not bad for the price. The slingbox AV will cost you about $179.00. The bottom line is that the software needs major improvements.

I got this as a gift a while back and when I first plugged it in downstairs, the software wouldn't work. After poking around the forums a while, they said I needed to connect the Hava directly to my PC for initial setup. Well... my PC is like 100 feet away so I put the Hava back in the box.

Fast forward a while and I was moving my PC so I thought I'd make a pitstop at the TV to finally setup the Hava. I directly connected the Hava to the PC, but it still didn't work. Turns one that I was misinformed by Hava about why the initial setup wasn't working and I didn't need to direct connect it. The problem was a bad power supply (which I also found tons of complaints about on the forums). So I contact tech support with my issue... they said too bad. Yes, they knew there were a lot of units shipped with a bad power unit but that my unit was out of warranty. Since you have to register the device, they knew I've never booted the Hava up, yet that didn't matter to them. Ok, so another week to wait and $15 for a new power supply, and setup was pretty easy.

One of the reason I bought this device was to program my Replay from my Blackberry. Hava has been saying for ever that Blackberry support was in the works. Now they're saying they aren't supporting Blackberries after all, but I should buy their new product cause it will. Ok, so I'm sure the two product lines can't be super different, but Hava would rather tell their existing customers that they're blowing them off now, and they're focusing on new customers.

I liked that Hava could be used for free on a mobile device, but now it can't for me, so Sling seems the best option.

Also, you have to use their software to control the device, so it's probably nice if you always have your own laptop while on the road, but that's not me. Sling has free web viewing, which is more what I need.

So Hava is useless to me - I'm going to get a Sling and know that I'll have to pay an extra $30 for the mobile software... but at least it's not vaporware.