Every day the world of television changes a little bit. The landscape is constantly being altered, whether it's with web video, mobisodes, time-shifting, and, more recently, place-shifting. Place-shifting, for the uninitiated, is watching one's local television stations (or content one has sitting in their house) on an Internet connected device.
Just as TiVo is the most recognized name in time-shifting DVRs, Slingbox is the most recognized name in place-shifting. However, just like with TiVo, Slingbox is not the only game in town. Monsoon Multimedia has its own line of place-shifting devices, entitled HAVA. One of newest products in the line is the HAVA Titanium HD.
A sleek looking piece of equipment, about the size of four DVD cases stacked on top of each other, the HAVA Titanium HD is extremely lightweight. It comes with numerous different ways to connect to any device with a television tuner (it does not have one built in, which is a drawback, but more on that below) like a DVR, cable box, or satellite receiver. It additionally comes with an Ethernet port and an 802.11g wireless dongle which can put placed into one of two available USB ports.
Unlike Slingboxes, the Titanium HD is able to play out video content to multiple PCs on a local network and one device via the Internet at the same time. The desktop application for viewing programs is sleeker as well.
As for the actual quality of streamed content, the HAVA Titanium HD performs solidly. Naturally, content does look better on a local device than one connected via the Internet, but both are more than acceptable for general viewing. The sound quality is good as well.
The device however is not without some disappointing aspects. Though touted for its ability to time-shift content, time-shifting (and recording of programs in general) can only be done when viewing a locally networked HAVA, not one being watched over the Internet. Additionally, at least for the TiVo Series 3 device to which I connected the HAVA, the remote control buttons did not always function properly. For instance, when pressing the "TiVo" button, rather than having the TiVo menu appear on the screen, the DVR advances to the end of a recorded program (or beginning of the recording if it is at the end). However, as selecting "Menu" from a dropdown list of commands does cause the menu to appear, a work around is not that difficult to implement.
Article comments