This is the HAVA Titanium HD that was on sale earlier this month for $119.99, only the HAVA Titanium HD WiFi is bundled with a USB WiFi adapter for an extra $30 - $149.99. Full MSRP is $249.99. The HAVA is a place-shifting device from Monsoon Multimedia, generally similar to the better known Sling Media Slingbox. While it is labeled ‘HD’ and it accepts HD resolution input, that is down-sampled and it really only streams in 720×480 - not HD - so don’t be confused by the naming. Compatible HAVA clients are available for Windows XP/Vista, Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, and Nokia Internet Tablets running Maemo.

Disclaimer: I’m employed by Sling Media and HAVA is an erstwhile competitor.

Dave Zatz over at Zatz Not Funny spent a little hands-on time with HAVA Mobile running on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. HAVA, a product of Monsoon Multimedia, is a placeshifting application similar to Sling Media’s Slingbox. And like SlingPlayer Mobile the HAVA Mobile client runs on various mobile devices such as Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 smartphones, and the Nokia Internet Tablet’s running Maemo, which is a platform not supported at this time by Sling. The tablets have a nice form factor for mobile viewing devices. See his post for more.

Disclaimer: I’m employed by Sling Media and HAVA is considered a competitor.

It has actually been openly available for a while as a public beta, but now Monsoon Multimedia is officially launching the HAVA Mobile Player for Nokia Internet Tablets. They issued a press release and everything. The free client runs on the Nokia N800 and N810 and allows you to stream content from your HAVA place-shifting device.

The press release:
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Buy,com has the HAVA Titanium HD for $119.99. The HAVA Titanium HD from Monsoon Multimedia is a place-shifting device similar to the Sling Media Slingbox SOLO. Clients are available for Windows XP/Vista, Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, and Nokia Internet Tablets - no Mac OS, Palm OS, or Symbian UIQ support.

I work for Sling Media, and the HAVA is ostensibly our primary competitor.

Monsoon Multimedia continues to add to their client suite for their HAVA placeshifting boxes. They currently officially support Microsoft Windows on PCs, while clients for Windows Mobile (Pro & Smartphone) and Nokia’s Internet Tablet Maemo Linux-based OS are in beta. A client for the Symbian S60 platform has been announced with an availability in 3Q08, according to a press release posted at jkOnTheRun. By way of comparison, Sling Media has released SlingPlayer for Windows and Mac OS, and SlingPlayer Mobile for Palm OS, Windows Mobile (Pro & Smartphone), and Symbian S60, while SPM for Symbian UIQ is in beta now, Blackberry is in development for release later this year, and the iPhone SDK is being evaluated.

Picked up from Zatz Not Funny.

Disclaimer: I am currently employed by Sling Media, for whom HAVA is the leading competitor.

ARCHOS has long been a leader in the PMP market with devices like their model 605 and 705 PMPs. And they’ve added some innovative features to their products, such as the ability to copy shows from DISH Network ViP622/722 DVRs. Lesser known is their TV+ DVR. The TV+ is a Ethernet/WiFi media player and DVR in one box, and the software seems to be based on their PMP software.

Now Archos is adding place-shifting to the TV+. Called ‘TVportation’ it will be a $49.99 software plug-in for the TV+, or free if the TV+ is registered on the ARCHOS web site. ARCHOS claims it will allow streaming of content from the TV+ to the ARCHOS 605 WiFi and ARCHOS 705 WiFi PMPs, as well as PCs, laptops and smartphones. You can also use an ARCHOS 605 WiFi or ARCHOS 705 WiFi as the streaming source, but you need to leave it docked in its base station. (So if you have two you can have one at home as the source and one as the client.) Details on the smartphone support is thin, saying only “compatible with Symbian later this spring”. Though the demo video on the website shows it running on a Windows Mobile Palm Treo.

A little exploring shows they have downloads for Windows Mobile 5 & 6 both Professional and Smartphone as well as Symbian Series60. But most curious is that all of the links are right to Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA clients - on Monsoon’s servers! At first glance it looks like they’re leeching the clients, but perhaps Monsoon and ARCHOS did some kind of deal. Still, it looks sketchy.

There’s a lengthy demo video up on YouTube:

From the video it is clear that one client at a time is supported, so you can’t have multiple devices streaming from one TV+.

Spotted in EngadgetHD.

Disclaimer: I’m currently employed by Sling Media, which produces the Slingbox series of place-shifting products. And I suppose TVportation is ostensibly a competitor to Sling.

Monsoon Multimedia announced last week that its set-top TV place-shifting products will soon deliver television to Windows Mobile and Symbian handhelds, including smartphones and PDAs. New handheld applications for Windows Mobile are due this month, followed by a version for Symbian-based smartphones.

The company’s four set-top boxes already provide place-shifted viewing to Windows computers and to Nokia’s palm-top N810 Internet appliance. Like the Slingbox PRO, Monsoon’s HAVA devices support multiple video sources connected at the same time, and their high-end units can stream to multiple viewers at once on a local network, though only one at a time over a broadband connection to the Internet.

Monsoon licensed new audio and video compression decoders from On2 Technologies, Inc. in order to implement the handheld client software; handhelds pose a significant challenge for receiving decent video quality thanks to low (and often unreliable) network bandwidth and low processing power compared to home computer setups.

A beta evaluation copy of the HAVA Mobile Player for Windows Mobile (including Palm Treo smartphones based on Redmond’s OS) is available now from the company’s web site.

Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA products are a lesser-known competitor to the Slingbox in the place-shifting market. One of the largest limitations to the HAVA product line has been the limited client platform compatibility, which has amounted to Windows or Windows Mobile (which is still in beta), while Sling Media supports Windows, Windows Mobile, Mac OS, Palm OS, and Symbian OS, with a client for BlackBerry in development. Instead of launching a client for one of these popular smartphone platforms, or even Mac OS, Monsoon has made the interesting choice of developing a client for Nokia Internet Tablets, such as the N810. While the Nokia tablets are certainly interesting gadgets, they’re not exactly a huge market. Internet Tablet Talk got a chance to play with the beta version of the player on a Nokia tablet, and they made a video of it.

I will warn you that the video is, well, slow paced. There isn’t a lot exciting there - it is a new version of the HAVA Mobile Player running on a Nokia tablet. The most interesting thing about that, to me, is that the Nokia tablets run Linux, so maybe this was an exercise to prepare for the growing number of Linux smartphones, etc. I just don’t see support for the N800/810 really selling any HAVA boxes, since the tablet market is fairly small. I’d think Monsoon would’ve gotten more return on investment by releasing a client for Mac OS or Symbian OS.

Picked up from EngadgetHD.

It seems that Monsoon Multimedia’s tactic this CES has been to spread their press releases out over several days. Today we have two more HAVA related releases touting more features of their platform.

The first is the announcement of HAVASoft, a software application for tuner equipped PCs which gives them streaming abilities like those of the hardware HAVA platform. So if you have a PC with a tuner, you can use HAVASoft to stream that content to another, client PC, or mobile device, with the HAVA client software.

The second is more of a rah-rah puff piece announcing their ‘ongoing development commitment’ to the Windows Rally Platform. I had no idea what ‘Windows Rally’ was, I had to look it up. It is just a framework to simplify connecting wired and wireless devices with Windows.

The press releases:
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Monsoon Multimedia is releasing support for USB hard drives on their HAVA Titanium products, which, until now, have been streaming boxes. Before this update it has been possible to use a HAVA as a remote tuner for a PC and to record on the PC, but now, with a USB drive, the unit can record to the local drive - making it a simple DVR. Recordings can be scheduled locally or from the PC.

“The HAVA Titanium, combined with an external hard drive will allow customers to have a TiVo-like experience without requiring a TiVo. With the introduction of forthcoming USB peripherals, we will continue to provide tremendous value to the HAVA customer TV experience,” said Colin Stiles EVP, Sales and Marketing at Monsoon. “We’ve created a technology that allows customers to not only do more with their home television but help customers stay current with their HAVA purchase as new technology evolves.”

Memo to Monsoon - there is more to the TiVo experience than just being able to record and playback programs. It sounds like the HAVA turns into a very basic DVR with single, manually scheduled recordings. Thats hardly ‘TiVo-like’ folks, don’t flatter yourselves.

No pricing or availability dates yet.

The press release:
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