WD TV Live Hub

Piece of junk! – I bought one of these when media players were just starting to enter the market. While it will plays most formats, it is ok once it's going but, getting it going is a pain! 1. It goes into sleep mode which is good but it takes a good 1m+ to boot up every time you try and use it which is painful when you've got kids waiting for it 2. The menu… Read more

system is extremely slow and unresponsive - scrolling through the video library can take up to 5 minutes with a 2-3 second delay after each button press or new page load.

3. The remote is sub standard - you have to press hard and it ignores/misses button presses all the time.

4. It had Netflix which wouldn't work in Australia due to ip blocking and then, when Netflix finally entered Australia, wd stopped supporting the device, so netflix Australia can't be unblocked EVER!

5. If you travel and take it with you but forget the remote - you're screwed! The device is completely unusable without a remote! A few times we took it with us on Xmas holidays and 1-2 times forgot the remote... That was annoying

In general, it's a sub-standard piece of junk and there are much better options on the market

Disappointing - does not meet expectations – I have owned this model (with 1TB storage) for a year and a half now and I absolutely hate it. Let me explain. It is marketed with a 1gbps Ethernet connection, and technically it connects at 1gbps. At least that's what my switch thinks. However, the absolute maximum you'll get is a tough over 100mbps. It's still fast enough to stream most HD… Read more

content from my PC but this doesn't always work.A lot of times, it will just freeze in the middle of a movie I'm streaming from the PC saying "the source has been removed."

Other PCs on my network can connect to the share on the server PC, so what's the WDTVs problem?

Sometimes it won't even detect PCs on the network when trying to play from network shares. So frustrating.

Also, the remote is painfully laggy. There use to be a smartphone app that was instant, but you have to look at the phone, rather than the included remote you can find your way around with your fingers.

This app stopped working after a WD firmware update some time ago. So I'm stuck with the remote again.

MP4 videos always need lip synch adjustment. They never do on a PC, only on the WDTV live. At least it's relatively easy to do on this device. And the audio/video quality is good.

I did a bit of research before buying this unit but still got caught out. So I hope that someone read this and doesn't go through the same rubbish I have had to.

I'm not sure what to do from here. Probably build my own HTPC on a a NUC. Clear picture and sound. Expensive, slow, deceptive marketing (1gbps)

Doesn't live up to its promises – I've been having countless problems with the WDTV Live hub. Bought it to replace my popcorn hour. Apart from being able to play from its internal hard drive, the other advertised features do not work well - streaming a movie from my NAS just doesn't work - (no matter on what protocol - tried SMB and NFS) - the round orange circle keeps spinning… Read more

and would not play until a reboot. I don't want to have to make a second copy of my movies from my NAS to the internal HD (which is limited to 1TB) to watch movies.

Stay away from this and get something else. Playing from internal HD works Playing from network shares does not work. Freezes until reboot, which is very annoying.

Buy One Today! – During my house renovations I placed an Ethernet connection near my TV as I believe integrated net/ tv will be all the rage is the next few years. I then started looking for a 'media centre', which would could connect to abc's iview, store our more popular DVDs and be easy to use. (the last point is very important as I don't have the time/… Read more ·  1

interest to spend hours working out how to use technology.)

At $179 dollars from officeworks, this device is a similar price to a 1TB HDD, yet it has the smarts to watch iview and is very easy to use. After searching the internet I purchased Magic DVD Ripper which allows me to store our DVDs directly onto the HDD while maintaining the DVDs menu structure (I find this important for tv series or movies with good extra features.)

ABC's iview is very easy to use however I'm not sold on the Facebook interface and some of the other applications aren't applicable to Australia.

I'm sure there are better media centres on the market place, however for the price, I think this this is fantastic. iview support, good value, easy to use, physically quite small so it fits in our cabinet area Navigation is a little slow, need to wait after pressing a button to see movement on screen.

NAS syncing really lets it down – Bought this as upgrade to WDTV Live in the hope it would improve NAS connectivity and media library speed over wifi. But it failed to meet expectations. Gave up on idea of NAS sync and copy files manually instead even over ethernet as it just refuses to schedule scans. Local storage is its strong point but you might as well connect a drive via… Read more

usb to the much cheaper Live model. storage, firmware updates, good remote sync with nas is buggy, no wifi, laggy interface, constant compiling of media library

Hard to fault – Took about 2 months of research before I bought this unit. I liked this unit when I first saw it, but spent the last 2 months seeing if anything else was as good on the market. This is a fantastic device, I was impressed when I first installed it and it is still great today. I have a WD Worldbook that has been running for 2 years so I knew… Read more

the quaility and reliability was there, my concern was whether it was as good as the write-up suggested. There was also concerns about whether it would play all the formats I used.

What did it for me was the ability to play NATIVE HD video taken directly from my Canon HD video recorder (.mts). Everything else I wanted to watch these moveies on required me to convert to avi or mpg, etc or else I had to have the camera plugged in. This played them.

It is also very light and portable, so will take on holidays and plug into any TV with HDMI.

Picture and sound quality is good.

I would recommend this to anybody looking for a HD media player. Easy to setup and use. Scrolling through teh video files could be improved, annoy that you can view sub-folders, you can store video file sin sub-folders but displays all in the list. Does not have built-in WiFi.

Excellent Device – I did a fair bit of research into media players before I bought one. I used to use built in one on my samsung but when I switched over to using macs I couldn't add new content to the external hard drive plugged into it, and the tv didn't support mac hard drive formats. Considering the $299 price I was considering dropping on this device I… Read more ·  1

didn't leave a stone unturned. I even looked up videos on youtube to see what the interface was like, and its definitely one of the prettiest ones I've seen.

I would have liked an Apple TV, but I didn't want to stream content from iTunes over the wifi. I preferred having a hard drive to fill up. And I'm not even close to filling up the 1 terabyte the live hub has.

The only downside is that when its in standby it hums louder than I expected. I've read into this and some people have experience loud devices. But you can't hear it when using the tv, its just when everything is turned off. Turning the device off at the device stops the noise. I would think it'll only be annoying if its in a bedroom. Pretty interface, easy to use, The standby hum, but still only a minor complaint

Great second player with 1TB of storage but does have issues – The WD Live hub is used in my home as a second player in the bedroom. I have had several media players and this one I would rate as OK. I would rate it higher if it had wireless and it wasn't for a hardware fault (caused by power switch) which caused the unit to hang. After a log wait WD finally did offer to replace faulty units. The user… Read more

interface is not as good as my Popcorn hour A-200. It is sometimes hard to read especially when it cuts of characters of long filenames. It doesn't show those until you select the file and the name starts scrolling. The player does play a wide range of files. It is uPnP so my main player in the living room can see content on the WD. Also the WD can be mapped as a drive from your pc.

I think the WD Live Hub is suited for somebody that isn't that tech savy and just wants to plug the player in and start playing content without the need for other computers in the house to be in on. If you just want to play content from your PC, get the WD TV live, not the Hub and you will pay about 200 dollars less. Small unit, 1TB storage, plays many formats, plays YouTube and some other on-line content Hardware issues, no Wireless, a little overpriced because of the missing wireless