Page 5: Video Review, Additional Use, Conclusion
Video Review
Please watch the video review for more information. Please leave us some feedback on ASE Labs or on Youtube. We're always happy to get feedback.
Additional Use
The Hub takes a big evolutionary step forward from the TV Live Plus. The addition of the 1TB drive means you can have a single media device do everything for your entire network. As a network server, it isn't the speediest. The supposed gigabit networking maxed out at a paltry 10.5MB/s, far under gigabit speeds. It is just a bit faster than Fast Ethernet when taking protocol and other overhead into consideration. The Hub supports WiFi only when connecting a support adapter into the USB port. It has no built-in wireless support.
Since this unit is always on, you can even log into a built-in website. Strangely enough, you must keep accepting a license agreement for a product you own over and over again on login. Other than being able to do light administrative duties (time and date stuff), you can access a virtual remote control. The virtual remote is probably a stepping stone for smart-phone applications or other such things and we're happy to see an evolution from that. It is a good effort for controlling the TV Live Hub remotely, though. It could be so much more.
You can also enable Twonky which allows you to stream content from the Hub to a computer. It works fine using VLC or another such applications. It isn't like an embedded Youtube player, though.
Seeing as the Hub is always on the power draw is important enough to be a concern. The maximum draw was 12 Watts while playing HD video and dumping files to its hard drive. At idle, it sucks a bit over 7 Watts. It isn't a power hog by any stretch and remember that most AC adapters suck power even if the device is "off."
There are some people with rather large collections of media and the 1TB drive isn't going to cut it for them. The TV Live Hub can access network content through Samba or UPnP AV streaming. If you have a Synology NAS or a MythTV server, you're already good to go. Most new storage devices can act as UPnP AV servers to stream content anywhere on your network and the Hub can do it as well. Don't have UPnP AV server support? The Hub can easily connect to a network share and stream from that as well.
The media support on the Hub is the same as the Live Plus, excellent. We generally don't bother with DRM media since we value our freedom of choice, so all of our favorites worked on the Hub. Still, most of these media players can handle almost anything you can throw at it.
Conclusion
The TV Live Hub is basically a TV Live Plus paired with a 1TB Scorpio Blue hard drive. For about $200, you get the marriage in a great and ease to use package. You could probably buy the TV Live Plus and an external USB drive for a bit cheaper, but the Mochi interface is worth the tiny premium in price. The Netflix support is excellent and beyond that, this device can truly be the hub of your network. It is very rare to see feature creep work well, but the Western Digital TV Live Hub gets it right and works very well.
If you already have a TV Live Plus or similar and don't need the storage, we recommend to wait for another generation of media players. The Mochi interface is great, but it isn't worth the price if you already have a functioning player. That being said, if you were waiting on a device that plays, streams, and can archive your media, this is it. The Western Digital TV Live Hub is a great addition to your entertainment center and home network.
ASE Labs would like to thank Western Digital for making this review possible.
Please watch the video review for more information. Please leave us some feedback on ASE Labs or on Youtube. We're always happy to get feedback.
Additional Use
The Hub takes a big evolutionary step forward from the TV Live Plus. The addition of the 1TB drive means you can have a single media device do everything for your entire network. As a network server, it isn't the speediest. The supposed gigabit networking maxed out at a paltry 10.5MB/s, far under gigabit speeds. It is just a bit faster than Fast Ethernet when taking protocol and other overhead into consideration. The Hub supports WiFi only when connecting a support adapter into the USB port. It has no built-in wireless support.
Since this unit is always on, you can even log into a built-in website. Strangely enough, you must keep accepting a license agreement for a product you own over and over again on login. Other than being able to do light administrative duties (time and date stuff), you can access a virtual remote control. The virtual remote is probably a stepping stone for smart-phone applications or other such things and we're happy to see an evolution from that. It is a good effort for controlling the TV Live Hub remotely, though. It could be so much more.
You can also enable Twonky which allows you to stream content from the Hub to a computer. It works fine using VLC or another such applications. It isn't like an embedded Youtube player, though.
Seeing as the Hub is always on the power draw is important enough to be a concern. The maximum draw was 12 Watts while playing HD video and dumping files to its hard drive. At idle, it sucks a bit over 7 Watts. It isn't a power hog by any stretch and remember that most AC adapters suck power even if the device is "off."
There are some people with rather large collections of media and the 1TB drive isn't going to cut it for them. The TV Live Hub can access network content through Samba or UPnP AV streaming. If you have a Synology NAS or a MythTV server, you're already good to go. Most new storage devices can act as UPnP AV servers to stream content anywhere on your network and the Hub can do it as well. Don't have UPnP AV server support? The Hub can easily connect to a network share and stream from that as well.
The media support on the Hub is the same as the Live Plus, excellent. We generally don't bother with DRM media since we value our freedom of choice, so all of our favorites worked on the Hub. Still, most of these media players can handle almost anything you can throw at it.
Conclusion
The TV Live Hub is basically a TV Live Plus paired with a 1TB Scorpio Blue hard drive. For about $200, you get the marriage in a great and ease to use package. You could probably buy the TV Live Plus and an external USB drive for a bit cheaper, but the Mochi interface is worth the tiny premium in price. The Netflix support is excellent and beyond that, this device can truly be the hub of your network. It is very rare to see feature creep work well, but the Western Digital TV Live Hub gets it right and works very well.
If you already have a TV Live Plus or similar and don't need the storage, we recommend to wait for another generation of media players. The Mochi interface is great, but it isn't worth the price if you already have a functioning player. That being said, if you were waiting on a device that plays, streams, and can archive your media, this is it. The Western Digital TV Live Hub is a great addition to your entertainment center and home network.
ASE Labs would like to thank Western Digital for making this review possible.