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
We have put the WDTV Live Hub through the paces, and it does appear to be an interesting product. Though it might not satisfy the large set of people clamouring on AVSForums or the WD forums, requesting new features and demanding fixes, it does appear to make for an ideal gift for the non-tech savvy friends and relatives in the upcoming holiday season. WD must be lauded for getting the user interface and media library aspect right this time around. This is sure to pull many consumers who are not aware of / have no necessity for features such as full HD audio bitstreaming, MKV PGS subtitles etc. Fortunately, for WD, these type of consumers are the bulk of the purchasing public. We expect the WDTV Live Hub to continue giving WD the success that the previous products in the lineup have provided.
Before wrapping up the review, let me enumerate the pros and cons of the WDTV Live Hub:
Pros:
- 1 TB hard disk bundled, enough for most non-tech savvy users' contents
- HDMI 1.4 support plays most existing 3D content on 3D TVs
- Expanded online services compared to previous generation product
- Improved user interface compared to previous products in this lineup
- Supports sync of USB drives and digital camera contents to internal hard disk through USB
- Easy control of playback and interaction with the streamer through Web Remote and USB keyboards
- TrueHD bitstreaming and WMA(Pro) decode work fully
Cons:
- Many bugs existing in previous generation products still left unfixed
- GbE port seems more like a marketing gimmick, rather than actually adding to the performance
- Content can be transferred to the internal hard disk from a computer using the network only
- Can't stream multiple HD streams from the Live Hub, though the specifications seem to indicate that it is possible
- For a flagship product, WD should have tried to provide full HD audio bitstreaming / Blu-Ray ISO support / advanced media streamer features
The Live Plus is inherently capable of many of the new features of the Live Hub, as the main SoC in both products is the same. Will the new features be ported to the old product? Only time will tell. In the meanwhile, if you are already planning to purchase a WDTV Live Plus, it is better to put in some extra money to purchase the Live Hub. It costs less than the combined price of a 2.5" 1 TB hard drive and the WDTV Live Plus standalone. The end user will have to put up with some quirks of the WDTV lineup, but, based purely on the price to performance ratio, the WDTV Live Hub will be hard to beat.
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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