Western Digital WDTV Live Hub Review
by Ganesh T S on October 26, 2010 7:38 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Media Streamer
- Gadgets
A couple of weeks back, I had the opportunity to visit the Sigma Designs office at Milpitas for a demonstration session. The main purpose of the visit was to understand Sigma's home convergence strategy, and in particular, how their powerline networking products fit into the puzzle. I had a very informative discussion with Keith Jack (Sr. Dir. of Product Marketing, Sigma Designs) and Michael Weissman (VP, Corporate Marketing, Sigma Designs). But, surely, powerline networking has nothing to do with the WDTV Live Hub? If that is your line of thinking, you are partially right. The powerline networking strategy is indeed a story for another day. In this section, I will cover the media processing solutions that Sigma Designs had on display.
The first demo I saw after our initial talk was that of a development board decoding 3D video onto a 3D TV. Excitedly, I peeked into the board, expecting to see the new SMP 8646 in action. However, I was surprised to see that it was the SMP 8654 on it. Upon inquiry, I found that a recent SDK had enabled decode of certain 3D formats with that chip (similar to how PS3's HDMI 1.3 port was 'fimrware upgraded' to partially support HDMI 1.4). Realizing that it was the same chip that powered the WDTV Live Plus, I was left wondering when a firmware update with the new SDK would reach the WDTV Live Plus owners.
Before moving on to the teardown section, I will wrap up this small section with what we can look forward to from Sigma Designs in the next year or so. A couple of years back, Sigma Designs bought video processing semiconductor firm Gennum. The IP from that company led to the VXP line of products, a part of many high end video processors. I saw a demo of the latest VXP chip in action, and the results looked really impressive. Keith indicated that the VXP IP would be eventually integrated with their decoder IP to yield a single chip decoder / video processing solution. In light of the demo, such a product has the ability to redefine picture quality on media streamers. It is a well known fact that Sigma Designs is one of the licensees for ImgTec's PowerVR GPU IP. Their latest chip integrates the PowerVR SGX 535, and an OpenGL demo (with 1080p video being decoded in the background) was on display. Eye candy user interfaces are sure to receive a face lift when given access to the powerful graphics capabilities of the PowerVR GPU.
By the time I decided to open up the Live Hub, it was quite obvious that the Live Hub was powered by the SMP 8654. The only remaining part of the puzzle was the GbE port.
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ganeshts - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
Exactly what I felt too :)odedia - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
I have the first gen product and WD does nothing to support its previous users. A simple firmware upgrade to enable Hebrew/Arabic fonts would be great service. Yet they refuse. I don't need all the rest of the mumbo-jumbo (Although WI-FI seems like a must).At this price - Just buy the new Boxee Box, it looks 10 times like a better investment at the same price point.
ganeshts - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
True. Gave feedback to WD regarding a host of issues in previous generation products which haven't been fixed yet. Not sure if they will act on it.gigahertz20 - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
I wish Anandtech would do a review of the Popcorn Hour A-200 and compare it to the WDTV lineup. I was looking the other day and saw that Amazon now carries it for $180. Anyways, I own a Popcorn Hour A-110 and a WD TV Live, and from my experiences playing back hundreds of different movies in several formats, the Popcorn Hour has better support.There were several movies that would not play back correctly on my WD TV Live but played fine on the Popcorn Hour, and the last firmware Western Digital issued for it was in March. They clearly do not care about fixing bugs when the last firmware they released was almost 7 months ago...I mean come on.
ganeshts - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
gigahertz20,We would love to evaluate the PCH / Dune / Xtreamer series, but we can only request the manufacturer for a review unit. If the manufacturer is unwilling, we can't do much. Yes, we can purchase a unit ourselves, but when we have a backlog of items sent by other manufacturers, it is quite difficult :)
That said, we are constantly in touch with various companies making innovative products and you should see them appearing in the review section soon. The Nixeus Fusion HD appears to be a likely candidate for getting reviewed sometime next month, but no guarantees.
gigahertz20 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
Thanks for the update :)rogress - Sunday, October 31, 2010 - link
Ditto on this. I really like these reviews of media players. Would also like to see the PCH units reviewed so we can compare.I wish these WD models had a web browser like the PCH units - so we can use our own "movie jukebox" like YAMJ. Thats the only thing missing for me.
EddyKilowatt - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
I've been eagerly awaiting a refresh of the WDTV before the holidays, hoping they'd fix the many reported bugs and video artifacts. My heart sank with each item on the feature list, and somewhere around 'supports Blockbuster' I lost hope. Looks like I'll have to widen the search again...Homerboy - Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - link
Does it provide video shuffle? Can I queue up a directory of my choosing and have it play those contained videos randomly? I am having a heck of a time finding a setop box that can do this like my XBMC units can.Chillin1248 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - link
I have recently purchased the Argosy 335T, and they have a shipping version that includes a 2TB HDD for $180. I would love for you to compare the WDTV against it.---------
Chillin