HAVASoft: Stream live TV over the web without a Slingbox (or Orb)
If you've got a TV tuner in your home PC, you can turn your PC into a streaming web video server using software like Orb or SageTV Placeshifter. Now Monsoon Multimedia is getting into the game with the announcement of HAVASoft.Monsoon Multimedia is probably best known these days as the first company to be sued for violating the GPL. But they also make a set top box that allows users to stream live video over the internet. You know, kinda of like a Slingbox, but less popular.
While Monsoon might not be a household name, their upcoming software does appear to have a few nice features. For example, it will bring some of the cooler features of the Hava set top box to the PC, like the ability to stream video to multiple users simultaneously. If you have a home network, you can also install the software on one PC with a TV tuner installed and use that tuner to record shows on another computer using Windows Media Center.
There's no word on pricing yet, and the release date is listed only as "early 2008," but we're going to wait until we try HAVASoft before we write it off as an also-ran.












Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsMad Dick BonesJan 11th 2008 10:59PM
So this company is going to charge for this software when Orb does the same exact thing very well for free?
I'm not particularly looking forward to this product.
MikeJan 12th 2008 9:40AM
I cannot tell you how fucking annoying it is to read about an interesting product or service only to click the link and find out that it is Windows ONLY! What is the point of using tags when you omit the dealbreaker? Please clean up your act.
RJan 12th 2008 6:13PM
@Mike:
If you had actually read the post, you might have noticed this informative part..
"...you can also install the software on one PC with a TV tuner installed and use that tuner to record shows on another computer using Windows Media Center."
It says *Windows Media Center*. Not Mac, not Linux, not Commodore 64. Don't blame others for your lack of reading comprehension.
MikeJan 13th 2008 9:51AM
@R:
You wrote: "If you had actually read the post, you might have noticed this informative part.."
This is the first flaw in your response. If the article had been tagged correctly, I wouldn't have needed to read the post in the first place.
Secondly, the guys who run this blog are Windows fanboys. They don't hide that. So mentioning that something works with Windows is not the same thing as saying this does NOT work on other platforms.
Maybe you need to get a clue too.
JamesJan 14th 2008 11:58AM
Other than the receiver hardware, doesn't MythTV do this already? I mean, you could just stream it to e.g. a PS3 for probably less than this sort of outfit -- used for about $300, plus you get an HDMI Blu-Ray/DVD player, a PS2, and I guess there's a couple decent PS3 games ;-).