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Hava is Slingbox on steroids

by Iyaz Akhtar on Jan 12, 2009 at 12:12 PM

Monsoon Multimedia's Hava

We’ve told you about Hava before.  It allows you to placeshift your television kind of like Slingbox.  Monsoon Multimedia’s Hava goes well beyond Slingbox with its latest offerings. 

Media Center integration

First off, the Hava integrates with Windows Media Center.  The plugin tricks Media Center into thinking that your Hava feed is a TV tuner, meaning you can use Hava as your live TV.

SociableTV.com

Next up is SociableTV.com.  Multiple people can watch your television through Hava’s SociableTV.com.  Here’s an example: if you want to watch your college sports team with your old buddies around the country just hook your Hava, sign into SociableTV.com, and then send invites to your friends via e-mail to watch your TV.  You can even chat in that same window.

SociableTV.com runs on any browser and will probably be launched in Q2 along with Facebook and MySpace integration.  SociableTV.com also has a recommendation sidebar.  If you’re watching someone else’s public feed, you could get recommendations for similar programming. 

Hava’s HD Box

And here comes the big guns—Hava has a new HD box coming.  There looks to be two different versions, the Platinum HD and the Titanium HD.  Look for them in late May at about $299, maybe even $249.  What can it do?  Well you can stream 1080i over 802.11n over component cables.  In the demo, a Blu-ray disc was streaming and it looked very impressive.  You can see a prototype HD box in the photo gallery, it is the squarish device with component cables.

Unfortunately, there is no input switching on the products today, but that should be coming with the HD box.  Expect prices to drop on current versions of the Hava hardware.

Company page: [Monsoon Multimedia]

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