• nice packaging
• easy set-up instructions that don't work
• mysteriously start and stop working
  
• lousy customer service

Hava is connected wirelessly to my router, and I can view the tv and control the channels on both computers (laptop and desktop both running Vista). Unfortunately, there's no channel list and no program guide.

Luckily, hava is built to work on Windows Media Center. I got this working one time, and it actually loaded a program guide so I could scroll and click and it would change the channel to whatever program I saw was on at that time.

But that was once. Since then, neither computer's Windows Media Center (WMC) can view it. WMC just freezes on the laptop, and says there's no tv tuner on the desktop. So for now, I can't tell what channel is what or what is on each station without changing to every channel.

Summary: works in hava player but not windows media center, so there's no program guide or channel identification (where's the discovery channel - do I really have to flip through 100 channels to find it?)

I had the slingbox working when I had an ethernet cable stretched down the stairs and around the corner to the router. Now I'm uisng the slinglinks with no luck. Slinklinks are ethernet power adapters - one plugs into the router, the other into the slingbox, and they send the internet signal over the power line.

The "power," "link," and "network" lights were all lit on both slinglinks, but there was no connection. I tried a different outlet, then a third. I know it's working because:

1. I can connect to the internet with my laptop through the slinglink
2. I can connect to the internet with hava through the slinglink
3. The slingbox connects when I open the slingplayer on windows.
   

After it connects, however, no channel list is loaded into the program guide, and the screen is blank except for the message: "Weak or no video signal detected"

Summary: Can work, I've seen it work, but not working now.

Read More 2 comments | Posted by Jon the legal immigrant |

2 comments

1. Alice Robbins on 10/23/08, 7:28 AM

   I want to know which one would be the best for me!!! I want to watch the Super Bowl in Poland! I am thinking Slingbox right now. tell me if I am wrong!

    
2. mr. childs on 12/8/08, 11:23 AM

   sling because it works better, hava if you want problems but a cleaner picture