Legit Mods and Ends Reviews

WD TV Live Hub Media Player w/ 1TB of Internal Storage Review

Manufacturer: Western Digital
Product: WD TV Live Hub (WDBABZ0010BBK)
Date: Thu, Nov 04, 2010 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Ken Brown -
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Introducing the New Standard in Media Players - WD TV Live Hub

WDTV Live Hub

Western Digital has released an all new media player called the WD TV Live Hub.  This new media player is based on previous hardware designed around the 500Mhz Sigma 8654 SoC which gives it the ability to play High Definition MKVs, ISO, AVI files and much more.  The WD TV Live Hub has a 1TB, 2.5-inch Internal Hard Drive to go along with an all-new graphics user interface.  Priced at $199 it is one of the most expensive media players we have reviewed lately, but none of the set-top players come with a built in hard drive.

The Western Digital TV Live Hub is designed to not only play multimedia that you have in your collection but it is designed to play media that you that is on the internet as well.  The Live Hub has the ability to play content from Netflix, Pandora, Blockbuster, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, MediaFly, and Live365.com.  It can even grab you local weather for your favorite city.

WDTV Live Hub Box

Because this player is based on the Sigma 86xx chipset, we expect this box to play all of our favorite content that we have in our library.  If you look at the our comparison chart, you see that the WD TV Live Hub’s performance profile looks identical to that of the WD TV Live Plus!  This makes sense because they both have the same brains.  For $100 more, however, Western Digital gives you 1TB of on-board storage for data as well as a Gigabit Ethernet upgrade and a brand new operating system and user interface.

Not only is the WD TV Live Hub a media ‘streamer’, but Live Hub can be considered a Media Server as well.  If you have other devices on network, the WDTV Live Hub can serve up audio and video via its iTunes or Twonkey server.  You can also share the contents of the hard drive with anyone on the network so that they can access the media files with a PC.  This player has a full-sized remote control and can work wired or wirelessly and output “Full-HD” 1080p.

WDTV Live Hub Comparison

You can see from the chart above (click for larger version) that this looks like a very robust and complete player.  We aren't going to call it the "Apple Killer" yet, but it is very apparent that Western Digital did not want their users to complain about lack of formats and codecs supported. 

The WDTV Live Hub isn't that big of a unit but at almost 8-inches wide, it is much larger than the Apple TV and slightly larger than the WDTV Live Plus.  The Live Hub is still quite thin and looks very stylish sitting in your living room or A/V rack.

WDTV Live Hub with Apple TV


WD TV Live Hub Featured Specifications:
  • File Formats Supported:
    • Video - AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9  
    • Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
    • Audio - MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
    • Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL Subtitle - SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI
  • File Formats Not Supported:
    • Does not support protected premium content such as movies or music from the iTunes® Store, Cinema Now, Movielink®, Amazon Unbox™, and Vongo®
  • Physical Specifications:
    • Interface:
      • Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, HDMI, Composite A/V, Component video, Optical audio
    • Physical Dimensions:
      • English:
        • Height    1.25 Inches
        • Depth    7.80 Inches
      • Metric:
        • Height    31.75 mm
        • Depth    198 mm

Next Page - Inside the WD TV Live Hub and New Mochi GUI


Review Index
Page 1 - Introducing the New Standard in Media Players - WD TV Live Hub
Page 2 - Inside the WD TV Live Hub and New Mochi GUI
Page 3 - Setting up the WD TV Live Hub
Page 4 - Internet + Network = Live!
Page 5 - Using the WD TV Live Hub