Many people are constantly searching for the right companion to go along with their nice HDTV.
For many people, that companion is usually a gaming console or some sort of media player. And on the rare occasion, that device is a home theater PC.
As hard drive sizes have increased and the shift towards digital media has begun, we are beginning to see an ever increasing amount of streaming media players on the market.
The only problem is that the majority of these streaming players is that they are only capable of playing media off of other devices or sources of content and as a result cannot become the center of the household when it comes to digital media.
The only device that is currently available that enables users to both stream off the networks as well as play locally is the Western Digital TV Live Hub.
This device basically combines the capabilities of all of the digital media devices that came before it into one compact package. Currently, none of the competition allows you to locally store your digital media onto a hard drive inside of the streaming device. As a result, sometimes playback can be choppy or glitchy.
The Western Digital TV Live Hub is effectively the convergence of what most of the devices should be able to do and what most consumers would like to have in their homes. Some consumers only want streaming, which is fine, we recommend sticking to the less expensive devices out there for those purposes.
But for a truly immersive and useful entertainment experience, the Western Digital Live Hub promises quite a bit. Today we will be determining whether or not the WD TV Live Hub (shortened name) is an effective streaming device and how its additional features make it better or worse than others out there. Before we dive into the actual product, we want to go over a few of the specifications that the WD TV Live Hub sports.
Western Digital Live Hub in bullets
- 1080P Video Streaming via HDMI 1.4
- Gigabit Ethernet
- USB 2.0 x 2
- HDMI, Component, and Composite out
- 1TB 2.5" HDD
- 1.3" (32mm) x 7.8" (198mm) x 6.1" (154mm)
- supported video formats: 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
- supported image formats: JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
- supported audio formats: MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL
- supported subtitle formats: SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI
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