Summary and Conclusion:
In the beginning Western Digital gave us the WD TV which was a great little media player but required the user to bring their own media and also didn’t support any sort of networking. Western Digital did release several other versions with variety of added features but the Live Hub really feels like it got the best of the entire lineup, it really feels like it should be the main piece of your home entertainment setup. The Live hub performs far better than its competitors with the only real competition being the Boxee box which currently has issues of its own that it needs to work out. That being said I did feel it was irritating that Western Digital markets the Live Hub as having a gigabit network port but actual transfer rate is that of 10/100 other than that I feel that the Live Hub is a great value for its price.
With the recent trend of TV’s moving towards smart devices that are network enabled, I wonder if we will continue to see media centers such as the Live Hub be all that useful in the coming future. What need do you have of a separate device if its all integrated into our TV’s? If media centers continue to hold their ground in the TV market I would love to see dual core devices with full HTPC functionality such as both Netflix and Hulu support, full skinning and animated movie wall support and generally beefier hardware than is absolutely necessary to run the original optimized UI.
I choose to give Western Digital’s TV Live Hub the Awesome hardware award for the massive amount of features packed into a small package and at a decent price point. With the addition of regular firmware updates we have the potential to see even more functionality out of this little box. I was very happy with the entire user experience from the super easy setup to more advanced features such as streaming to several devices. The entire UI is very clean and while not heavy on the flash still manages to look nice and be super easy to use.
The Good
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The Bad
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is this like 2010? or even 2009? Actually WD are nearing the releeaseof the next gen of media streamers 8670 chipst, this thing has been out for 18-24months. It should have dropped in price more as well. The new thing supports full gigabat speeds, and powerline networking built in. Could be very nice
Is this device wireless capable?