Exceptional Price vs Benefits! Excellent for casual users. Pros: Absolutely excellent playback quality on 1080p w/DTS file. A very, very nice user interface with variety of content display options makes for a somewhat bulletproof playback experience for even the technically impaired. Most all the expected media storage or access categories are among the main menu selections. A little more knowledge or practice may be necessary for organizing, transferring and storing family videos and DVD collections. Just put some time into exploring file and system menus, practice on small files (easily deleted) and successful media management all becomes clear! Just remove the network cable to confirm transfer and playback from internal storage. Occasional quick restarts will refresh and speed the first time validations process. Cons: None really. Would have given it 5 stars if less expensive or capable of direct transfers via USB 3.0 or eSATA! Other Thoughts: Recognize that this is NOT a fully capable computer and therefore should not expect similar connections and transfer speeds. My full DVD-converted-to-MKVs (avg size 4.3Gb) take about 15 minutes each direct from computer drive while 1,000+ DIVX files (avg size 700Mb) connected via USB2.0 Dock took approx 80hrs via network synchro mode by tagging multiple genre folders containing 125 to 200 files each. A faster method is using Windows7 network copy. This way, 900Mb complete transfers take about 25 hours. Great USB (Front or Rear) addon content also easily made available for selection and playback while continuously connected either to USB Flash Drives or external hard drives.Read full review
WE use the device to play our MANY personal DVDs. American Sign Language (ASL) is all video and we have a lot of ASL DVDs. When Swapping between disks in our DVD player one day, I thought there must be a better way. WD TV Live Hub fills the bill perfectly! It quickly brings up any DVD I call for and giving me full access to the menu system. Wow, all from the remote. (My cell phone works as a remote for the system too). Plenty of room for Movies and Photo collections. 10 years of Digital collections and I still have a third of the Hard Drive to go. Only one negative. Play control is limited. when I need to slow motion a scene, It does not have this function. fast forward and rewind is a bit clutzy. Another Draw back is the scant instructions on how to get a fully operational DVD copied onto the Unit. Once I figured out the sequence, I copied away. AS for the boat load of applications available on it, only a few are worthwhile. One Kudo, the cell phone interface makes typing in searches (like youtube) a breeze, i can even type things in with voice! I'm not into ripping movies, but I did copy a kid movie (that I own) that was getting pretty scratched onto the unit. It played it like brand new. (although I did have to bypass the encryption) It also will allow any computer or device on the network to have access to any file. I would have given the unit a 5 Star except for the missing slow motion function and an occasional need to reboot (like any good PC!) to get it back in working order. Also, I found that it won't automatically find the downloads every time. But there is a function that allows the Media Library to be re organized and that will always find all the files. PS the remote works from anyplace in the room, no need to point at the unit. It must have a really bright IR transmitter!Read full review
Bought it to watch .avi files and to stream netflix. Pros: Easy to use and Great User Interface Plays 16 different services Nice small size Cons: Randomly freezes when playing netflix. the only way to fix it is to unplug it a plug it back in. Read online that others have had this problem. Have found that standing it on it's side and keeping it in an open place has helped, but not gotten rid of the problem, so it may be an issue of overheating. Was a bit frustrating to sync files from another drive the first time. Couldn't find a way to manually sync files, only auto sync. Had a difficult time watching files from another drive without syncing them, and ended up just syncing them, which took half of the day. Overall I would say that I am happy with this media player, although I have never owned any other, so I can't really say how it compares. The issues mentioned above have been an inconvenience, but we have still enjoyed using it, as it is a huge improvement to our previous set-up.Read full review
A great media player. Does everything I want it to. And I can control it thru my SlingBox. I bought a Factory Refurb. Very cheap :). But it has no HDD. It will only work with a WD Scorpio Blue Drive. The drive is needed for Auto Updates. Without you have to do manual updates with a USB flash drive. I have 8TB of media on my LAN Storage devices. A bit too much for the built in Media Manager. But I can manually navigate and play any file I have. The list of IP services that are offered keeps growing. I Love this box :) I deduct 1 star for the internal Media Manager
I had been using a WD TV live and WD TV live plus to watch digital files on my TVs. The WD TV live doesn't have an Ethernet connection and so files had to copied to an external hard drive or USB stick; a process that could take some time. I wanted to be able to network the player in the living room and the bedroom so that they could share a common source. I chose the WD TV Live Hub, instead of buying another WD TV Live Plus, because it has a build-in hard drive. I have been streaming from my computer hard drive but found that the stream can run slow or be interrupted if the computer is carrying out disc operations. The build-in hard drive streams to my networked WD TV Live Plus (via a wired outlet bridge) seamlessly. And, at 1 TB I was able to move my music, photos, and saved videos to the Hub with tons of room to spare for new media. The interface is easy to use and customizable with an excellent remote. I also like the feature that allows you to jump to any time point in a video without having to use forward or reverse and wait for it to reach the spot (as is the case in earlier players from WD). It includes other features such as being able to watch Netflix streaming media directly on your TV, go to your Facebook account, and stream YouTube videos. I have the Hub attached to a 1080P LED TV and the picture is fantastic via an HDMI output. It also has options for Component or Composite outputs. The player can handle most video formats -- it cannot, however, play WTV recorded through Windows Media Center; these need to be converted to DVR-MS files which, at least in Windows 7, can be handled via right clicking on the file. Perhaps in future models of its players, WD can add build-in WiFi capabilities. While it costs more than many other digital video players on the market, the build in hard drive and other features is more than worth the extra cost.Read full review
The media player is a beast! I play blu-ray rips and have the live hub gather the movie information from it's imdb'ish type server. When I scroll my movie library, the movie information is there along with background images of the movie appearing as if it's in a slideshow. You obviously need an internet connection along with setting the option to retrieve the information. I haven't tried the other streaming options like youtube, netflix, pandora, etc. But just for streaming and playing 1080p movies, it's a beast! You can mount the live hub as a drive in windows, but copying to it from your computer will be very very slow. It's actually best to copy movies to an external drive (I have 500GB) and then let Live Hub sync (copy movies from your USB external drive to the internal TB drive). Small Quirks: So, I used a 16GB thumb drive to copy some movies over. It created a new movie folder on the TB drive. So, I just went to the hub on my windows explorer and moved the contents to the original movie folder drive (internal TB drive). It's that easy. It does not have a "chapter" type button, ie seek. You can however go directly to a defined time like 35m15s. With the new updates, there are a lot more online services you can use.Read full review
This is an awsome product, it has a tarabite of memmory so i dont expect to fill it. i can watch net-flix and all of my pictures do a slide show when i just leave my WD on. It plugs in to my router with an eathernet cable and their are 3 types of network shair or internal crap and something else, that can make a mess of things for some one who dosnt do trial and error untill i get it right, and be dammed if i have to call the company for instructions.
I'm using this as an external hard drive and to run all my videos on my TV. The Unit is small and non descriptive except for "WD" light on front when its on. The unit works good after you figure out the interface and update it. The only reason i am giving it 4 instead of 5 is it runs slow. Turns on fast but going through the menus can get slow and looking through your library can be slow also. Those 2 facts aside i would still recommend for casual use. One or Two movies a day.
Very convenient for video/music/photos streaming. Excellent quality of video and pictures. 1 GB hardisk space is great for storage of favorites movies. Easy but very slow in transferring data between other portable devices and the media streamer. It synced everything automatically from other portable devices. Very tedious to delete unwanted files. I like it pretty much but still learning to use it. I cautiously give it a 4-star rating but it might go up to 4 and a half after awhile.
Very versatile & efficient product. Might seem shaky at first to use especially if your not technically savvy. But when you use it more and add more content to it, you will see its fruitfulness. Getting a wireless keyboard or smartphone app (WDTV-Remote) to control it also enhances the experience. Sometimes I use the WDTV Live Hub for the whole weekend without watching cable. Buy if, 1: you want to view multimedia content from the web 2: if you want ALOT of storage for your own multimedia content.
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