HAVA Platinum - Some questions for users

[SDeGonge]

I'm planning on upgrading to HD cable and I'm looking at options for getting HD to my PC. I saw the HAVA Platinum and it looks good but I can't find any specs on it other than it saying it can do "DVD quality".

A couple of questions....
- What is "DVD quality"? 720p, 1080i, 480i????
- Is it Sage friendly? Easy to set up?
- Can you have multiple units attached?
- Can it decode clear QAM?
- I will be connecting from a SA4250HD cable box. Any issues?

[Jason]

Originally Posted by SDeGonge

I'm planning on upgrading to HD cable and I'm looking at options for getting HD to my PC. I saw the HAVA Platinum and it looks good but I can't find any specs on it other than it saying it can do "DVD quality".

A couple of questions....
- What is "DVD quality"? 720p, 1080i, 480i????
- Is it Sage friendly? Easy to set up?
- Can you have multiple units attached?
- Can it decode clear QAM?
- I will be connecting from a SA4250HD cable box. Any issues?

Check here... The model is different, but the specs are basically the same...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/down...do=file&id=191

As far as easy to set up, now it is...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...29&postcount=5

No as to the multiple units... Well, if you set up subnets for each of them, it is possible, but not as a tuner...

No the QAM (at least on it's own...)

and...

No issues... the HAVA has it's own IR transmitter...

[GbrNole]

i'm still intrigued to see what the quality of HD capture looks like by the HAVA? i'd love to see a short clip but all i can ever find or youtube (or the like) is short clips of gaming.

there are some pretty solid gaming examples on there but i'd give my left arm to see the quality of how it downscales 1080i to 480i!

[Graygeek]

Check your PM here ... you will find a link to a couple of short clips

[GbrNole]

thanks Graygeek!

i think the link may have been truncated though because it shows no files?

[Graygeek]

My bad cut & paste .... you should have a good link now

[GbrNole]

oh this is gonna be painful, trying to figure out how to best detach my left arm...

awesome, really appreciate it!

some jaggies in there but not even remotely close to how bad my cable box is when it scales down the HD to svideo, capture quality really is pretty dang good and best of all, absolutely no window boxing!!!

now the next question - does it work with WHS?

[Graygeek]

Not sure about WHS running XP here, been testing out Win7 which seems to work fine with HAVA using their beta release .... like I've noted the picture is darn good on the 42" LCD it looks much better than on the pc monitor ... but in all fairness we have old eyes here and we typically are not doing premium content. We mostly watch & toss, FX,TNT,SCiFi, etc. So HAVA fits my need with a good price point and it just plain works ... no hangs, crashes and I can't recall the last time it needed to be rebooted.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Graygeek

...it just plain works ... no hangs, crashes and I can't recall the last time it needed to be rebooted.

Could not have said it better myself! There is nothing more stable right now in regards to a standalone tuner.

I know... big words for a 'hack' of a system. Looking at it from a reboot vs reboot factor, it is true however!

[Fuzzy]

Is the 480i $150 hava platinum that much cheaper than the 1080p $210 HD-PVR though?

[Graygeek]

It can be found for < $100 with little effort, and given the stabiltiy of the HAVA, no Window boxing , etc. etc. it was a no brainer for me. I looked hard and long at the HD-PVR and am very happy with the results HAVA has given me. 480 x 720 looks very very good, as good as most the of original content it records.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Is the 480i $150 hava platinum that much cheaper than the 1080p $210 HD-PVR though?

Here is a video detailing the downscaling qualities of the HAVA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRuHZ0sGLwk

As far as the price goes, $87.99 from Monsoon gets you into the game... and a wireless version to boot

http://myhava.com/product_hava_wireless_hdr.html