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
The WDTV Live Hub case had no screws on the outside, similar to the earlier WDTV units. However, once the notch at the rear end of the top panel was spotted, it was a simple job to pry it open and expose the internals. The fan inside the unit renders unnecesaary the heat sink found in the previous generation products.
The 1 TB internal hard disk is the WD Scorpio Blue. Unfortunately, the unit doesn't seem to be easily user serviceable.
The other main components on the board are as follows:
- Sigma Designs SMP 8654AD : Video decoder
- Realtek RTL8110SC(L) : Gigabit Ethernet controller
- 4 x 64 MB NANYA DRAM modules
- Samsung K9F2G080UB 2 GB NAND Flash
The Live Hub board is based upon the Vantage 8654 development platform provided by Sigma Designs. As a way of customization, the Realtek GbE controller is probably connected to the SMP 8654 using the PCI connector. The SATA port made available in the SMP 8654 is connected to the 1 TB hard disk. From the hardware viewpoint, other than the GbE controller, there is nothing much exciting or different from the reference design. Unfortunately, the GbE controller doesn't appear to deliver its full potential, and it doesn't look like WD is planning to fix it either. However, it does lend a nice marketing pitch, as this happens to be the first dedicated media streamer in the market with a GbE port.
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ram1009 - Monday, January 17, 2011 - link
The first thing I did when I hooked up this unit was to upgrade the firmware. Following some connectivity issues I tries to play some VOB files over my WIRED connection and had choppy playback. After many days of forum research with some senior people there seemed no answer until I rolled the firmware back to default settings. The problem disappeared immediately and has not recurred. If you get one of these don't upgrade the firmware. You've been warned.pshen7 - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
The LiveHub with the internal 1TB HDD is cheaper than a Live+ and a 1TB Passport. It's a potent unit at it's price point.Something I didn't note before: the WDTV Live Hub can share media to the Live+, both the internal HDD and USB devices that are plugged into it.
You can even have both units play the same file at the same time.
Peter Shen, founder Koowie.com
anand_s63 - Thursday, June 9, 2011 - link
as i opened the boxed wd tv media hub some four hours ago i was apalled by the insensitivity of the western digital people. first of all the power plug supplied was not of india specification which it should have been while they sell the product here. i ran back to the market spent time searching and got one. as i started the device i found the remote was faulty. the down scroll, numbers 5,7 9 were not responding and didnt work. i had to use my smart phone to setup the network. when i tried to dicover the device with the wd discovery software it did not discover any thing. than i had to search the device through the network folder and than i was able to u/l some pics and videos to the device. it works excellent all i hope that they could be a little sensitive and thoughtful with this very good product.