About a month ago, the friendly folks at Monsoon Multimedia sent me a HAVA Platinum HD box to try out. What’s that, you ask? It’s kinda like the Slingbox, only cheaper, and they have a client for both S60-powered handsets like my N95-3 *and* a client for the Nokia Internet Tablets. Actually, to be accurate, they have a beta client for both products. I’ve had the pleasure of testing out both clients, and wanted to give a bit of a sneak peak at the S60 one, which is currently in closed pre-beta.
First, some details on the HAVA box itself. It’s small, black, with fun little blue LEDs on the front. The box connects to nearly any video input – cable boxes, satellite tv boxes, DVD players, VCRs, etc. Using a great remote interface and these little IrDa receiver things, you can do anything you need to on your cable box – I’ve already used mine to setup a recording, delete recordings, etc. The Platinum HD version supports HD (obviously), Windows Media Center Edition computers, and even allows you to burn to DVD, which is pretty cool sounding.
Dan at Tabletblog.com already reviewed the Tablet client, which I have to confess, is pretty freakin sweet. There’s a bit of a delay, but I think that’s more to do with the actual Tablet’s hardware than anything else. A good note is that they’ve been updating the Tablet beta at least once every week or two lately. Love frequent updates.
I’ve only recently gotten ahold of the pre-beta for S60, and it’s already looking pretty good. As you can see, the default view allows you to see the current speed (you can use 3G or WiFi) and up to 10 shortcut buttons. With speeds around 230Kbps, I was able to watch TV with no stuttering or buffering or anything. Lower than that, and you have issues. On the Nokia N95-3, when you slide the media playback keys out, the viewer automatically rotates and goes into fullscreen mode, which is nice. Autorotation would be convenient, but not completely necessary.
One thing that I like already in the S60 client is the massive amount of settings. You can adjust the audio quality, and even opt for a smaller sized video, if you’re having issues with connectivity. There’s also a fantastic Picture settings, which allows you to adjust the brightness, hue, contrast and saturation.
Since it’s still in pre-beta, I won’t give too many performance stats (as those are likely to be vastly different when the client’s openly available). However, if you already have a HAVA player, or are looking to get one, you can apply to be a beta tester here. You can also check out a whole mess of screenshots here. Of course we’ll be covering the final application in depth here on Symbian-Guru when it’s ready, as well.
