Hava Introduces Sociable TV… And More

I spent some quality time catching up with the Hava team yesterday. They make a line of placehifting products that compete with the Slingbox. And like the Sling of old, Hava’s not afraid of taking on big media. In fact, they’re really rolling the dice and tempting fate by introducing Sociable TV. Taking an entirely different approach than Sling’s yet-to-be-seen online archiving and sharing service (Clip+Sling), Hava will enable Hava owners to share live television feeds (or DVRed content) via a web portal. To a select group of friends. Or, to the entire worldwide population. Sociable TV is slated to arrive mid-year, assuming the studios, networks, or lawyers don’t intervene, and will include other “sociable” features such as friends list, text chat, and content starring.

Like everyone producing mobile software, Hava’s also got an iPhone client in the pipeline. It’s looks pretty far along in development, and they expect to have it up in the iTunes App store within just a month or so. The app features a very basic remote control interface, but you’ll get your all of your home television on the go in both portrait and landscape modes. Unlike Sling’s mobile software, all of Hava’s mobile software is free of charge.

Speaking of the iPhone, or any video-capable iPod, updated Hava software will transcode and recorded content onto those devices. While the recording features aren’t new, and still not offered by Sling, the MPEG4 conversion are. Also featured in the new PC client, coming soon, is a fullscreen guide.

Last, but not least, Hava’s getting back into the OEM business (see Pinnacle). Instead of launching their own Slingbox PRO HD-alike, Linksys is incorporating HD Hava streaming into an upcoming media product.

6 thoughts on “Hava Introduces Sociable TV… And More”

  1. Dave, I am glad to hear all of this news. I have the Slingbox Classic and bought a Hava a couple months ago too. I use the Hava primarily because they have a Nokia Internet Tablet client and I can run their mobile software on all of my mobile devices without having to pay for a client for each device. If Sling would give me free mobile clients, then I would upgrade to the latest Slingbox in a heartbeat, but I have too many devices to afford all the mobile licenses.

    Very nice to see a Hava iPhone client too. Lastly, I hope they roll out an Android client and would think that would be easier than an iPhone client.

  2. Looks good. I’m jonesing for an iphone app and if Hava gets to market first….

    Do I recall Hava being PC only?

  3. “…and will include other sociable features such as friends list, text chat…”

    That was the promise of Joost when I was a beta tester in 2005 – and they never delivered.

    Cannot wait for the Twitter Yahoo TV widget – that will be totally fun!

  4. these guys must be on crack! Never gonna happen. There are sites that are doing ‘shared TV’ already and guess what – legally. http://miiTV.com you can watch CNN or BLOOMBERG TV live, among others or watch movies and TV shows and ‘chat’ w/friends while watching.

  5. What I like is Hava’s remote recording which sling wont enable.

    Sociable TV will be a blast… sure will shake up the market.

  6. Man I’d this for real? This document is dated January and it’s now September. I’m really hating this wait. I have found a different way of getting my dish to work on my iPhone! Dish now let’s you schedule DVD recordings online, which is great. I have a web streaming server streaming my dish signal, then I can see and hear video on safari accessing my webserver. The quality is not great but not much worse than an SD tv. The control is a bit slow since I have to go to the dish site to schedule a recording when i want to change a channel. But hey it’s better than nothing. Hava please release the app, love using multiple pc clients and multiple inputs.

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