WDTV Live Hub – time for an upgrade?
Each year Western Digital come out with a new WDTV player – this year it’s the WDTV Live Hub with a 1TB internal 2.5″drive and a new interface.
I usually treat myself to an upgrade around Christmas and flow the older models down the line retiring the oldest but I’m still um’ing and ar’ing this year.
The Live Hub seems to be the same WDTV Live with a new skin on the current Live platform, a new form factor and an internal drive. From what I’ve been able to find out the Live Hub it also won’t be getting any of B-Rad’s love anytime soon either. So I would be tied to WD updates.
Saying that – I must admit I’ve only applied B-Rad to my old WDTV (original version) and I kept the family unit on original WD firmware & updates – also B-Rad for WDTV and Live is now based on a much older version of the firmware. I still think B-Rad firmware provides more features than the original firmware but the latest WD official version added a heap of new internet features and I haven’t seen B-Rad keep up.
The WDTV Live is also only $98 at Officeworks at the moment compared to $299 for the Live Hub. I’m considering getting another WDTV Live for upstairs http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail/products/Technology/Data-Storage/Media-Players/WDBAAP0NBK
I also just filled up my 1TB drive attached to my WDTV Live and Officeworks currently have a great deal on the 2TB WD Elements drive – only $128 so I purchase one and have just migrated to the 2TB WD elements drive and it works fine with the WDTV Live.
So I already have 1 TB of data and that would immediately fill the WDTV Live Hub, I now have a 2TB drive I can plug into it to give me 3TB of storage if I get one.
The WDTV Live Hub also has a new interface, remote web control and true HD stream…
From what I’ve seen also a better remote to imediately jump to the location you want, alpha keys (like a mobile) to improve text entry – and you can also plug a USB keyboard into the WDTV Live Hub for better searching.
At the end of the day it’s still a WDTV Live with a 1TB hard drive, a new interface and some other useful features – hence the um’ing and ar’ing.
For the record, I held one in my hands at JB Hi-Fi tonight and put it back on the shelf telling myself I would do more research first. I’m not yet convinced that it has better performance than the WDTV Live.
Any interface changes also need to be easy for the family to use and pass the 7yo usability hurlde.
For me to take the decision to upgrade also means there is a resonable upgrade from the current WDTV Live. I’m not in the US where most of the firmware upgrades of the WDTV Live have been focused, maybe if I establish a VPN to the US I coud realise more of the benifits. For Aussies, the jury still seems to be out on the WDTV Live Hub.
At this stage my advice is HOLD 
More research on WDTV Live Hub is required…
In the mean time – snap up one of the curernt WDTV Live media players – they are awesome and you can’t go wrong.
I have the answer for you Merric, don’t buy the WDTV Live Hub. I was at the press event to launch it and got to test one for a week and for the price which is 3 times the old one I don’t think its worth it
Hi Neerav,
Thanks for your feedback and advice – I really appreciate it. You have confirmed my thoughts and concerns.
Have a great Christmas and New Year
- Merric
Hello,
I have a WDTV Live Hub. It’s my first actual set-top media player so I do like it, but I also agree you might want to hold off. It’s great once you get the files copied over (and my 1 TB drive is full already), but getting the files to the device is painful. Not only is the onboard NIC only 100 Mbs (so only seeing about 10 MBs transfer rates with 1 GB files, it takes forever), but the copies fail most of the time. Not quite sure why that is just yet. Also, when you copy files over, sometimes it takes hours for them to show up in the interface even after rebooting the device. I do like it once everything is copied over and the files show up, though. I have Netflix, which this device uses very nicely, but it still doesn’t have Amazon on demand which is a biggie for me too.
Anyway, just figured I’d give you a few cents of my couple months of experience on this device.
Hi Tim,
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with the WDTV Live Hub.
I’m still using the WDTV Live and purchased another unit for the second TV. I’m running the second unit off a wireless N network and streaming to the device works perfectly fine for most content – it is only 720p and 1080p files that need to I cache locally.
My transfers to the WDTV live are a bit slow but usually bullet proof. Shame to hear that the same can’t be said for the WDTV Live Hub.
- Merric
I did plug in an external USB hard drive to the live hub today since I’m out of space on the built-in 1TB drive. It works great and by plugging the usb drive into my computer first to copy files is so much faster. If the unit you are using accepts external USB drives, I may get one of those. I like the interface and it plays back media very well. I was trying to copy over an 8 GB file from my HD camcorder a couple days ago and it would get about 70% done and say the connection was lost to the live hub; after trying 4 times, I gave up and put it on the external usb drive today and just attached that which worked very well. I usually hold my breath and cross my fingers when copying, but that doesn’t always work.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your info with me. I’d rather stay away from building home media computers because of the power consumption and building them can be a pain.
Excellent write-up. I absolutely love this website. Keep it up!