WD's New Network Media Center Offers 1TB HDD

Best Buy has an exclusive deal with Western Digital to carry the latter company's new WD TV Live Hub media center here in the States.

As a media player, the device supports video formats such as .mkv, .mp4, and .mov. Consumers can transfer media from PCs and Macs across the network or directly from external hard drives, USB sticks, camcorders or cameras connected via one of the two USB ports. The WD TV Live Hub can also work as a server, streaming media to DLNA/UPnP-compatible devices such as Blu-ray disc players, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and even Apple and Android devices using a third-party app.

"With the WD TV Live Hub media center, consumers can take their home entertainment experience to the next level, streaming personal content to multiple rooms at the same time, so they can play a Netflix video on their HDTV screen in the family room, while sharing vacation slideshows on the computer in their home office," said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD's branded products group.

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Kevin Parrish has more than a decade of experience working as a writer, editor, and product tester. He began writing about computer hardware and soon branched out to other devices and services such as networking equipment, phones and tablets, game consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom’s Hardware, Tom’s Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others. At HighSpeedInternet.com, he focuses on network equipment testing and review.

9 Comments Comment from the forums

tuch92

I can build one just as well for same price and more functionality.
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joytech22

What do you mean? they sell them here in dick smiths with the 1TB drive, i think it's the same thing based off info from the text.

Note: Dick smiths is a real store in Australia and New Zealand.
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agnickolov

joytech22What do you mean? they sell them here in dick smiths with the 1TB drive, i think it's the same thing based off info from the text.Note: Dick smiths is a real store in Australia and New Zealand.Read more carefully - the article explicitly states that the exclusivity deal with Best Buy is for USA only.
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dEAne

I wish it is much bigger drive than 1Tb.
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also, the 1tb version has no ethernet connectivity... at least the one I saw for $249AUD didn't.
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sgvtech

This uses the same chipset as the WDTV Live Plus... the Sigma 8654... the WDTV Live HUB also has a hardware installed RealTek Gigabit Ethernet port, but that Sigma Chipset does not support Gigabit...
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kelemvor4

sgvtechThis uses the same chipset as the WDTV Live Plus... the Sigma 8654... the WDTV Live HUB also has a hardware installed RealTek Gigabit Ethernet port, but that Sigma Chipset does not support Gigabit...Does it support streaming from other network devices? if so, gig will be required for 1080p (I do it today with a PS3 and PC). If not, I don't see what you'd really need gigabit to the device for.
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sgvtech

10/100 ethernet can stream 1080p very well in fact. I stream 10GB to 30GB 1080p high bitrate movie files just fine to my media players... Most of the time it is more than enough unless you are doing file transfering and not streaming or if you want to stream to multiple devices at the same time - that is when Gigabit would be recommended.
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Sgvtech: What configuration of equipment do you have? What media center do you have? I have a New Samsung TV/LCD (Wireless DLNA), lags when playing video over 700mb from NAS110. Lags even when all devices are connected to my network via Gigabit switch. I'm now looking for a new network media center, any suggestions? please email me: alexchetty@gmail.com
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