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Customer Reviews for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Model: WDBABZ0010BBK-NESN
SKU: 1308088
UPC: 718037765112
This media center is a network media player with a built-in 1TB hard drive. Store and play your videos, music, and photos, watch movies, and access the the Internet. Smart Set-Top Box Get a world of instant entertainment with this smart set-top box. Connect to the Internet and stream movies, listen to music and access a wide variety of other content on your HDTV. Learn more about smart products. Netflix YouTube Pandora Facebook CinemaNow Hule Plus
Average Customer Rating:
3.9
out of 5
(89 Reviews) 89
Rating Snapshot 89 reviews
5 stars
44
4 stars
18
3 stars
10
2 stars
4
1 star
13
78% of customers would recommend this product to a friend
(
69 out of
89)
Customer Reviews for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Review 1 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
It works but it isn't optimal
Customer Rating
3.0
Value for Price
2.0
Features
2.0
Ease of Use
3.0
Ease of Set Up
2.0
What's great about it: Easy to use if you have a small library
What's not so great: Not fully baked, limits your hard drive upgrade options to WD only.
More than a few movies and the interface is slow and choppy. It is otherwise intuitive, provided you don't have to dive into the menus for something. I think it might be the best available commercial appliance right now but it certainly isn't better than what you can roll yourself using Boxee or XBMC.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
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Review 2 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Works perfectly! Does what It promises, perfectly!
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Features
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Ease of Set Up
5.0
What's great about it: It works great and easy to set up
What's not so great: Nothing. Just make sure you update the box 1st, cause all of the new options are not there till you do
I love it! I had the apple TV and I sold it after buying this.
It does all that the apple tv does, plus a lot more!
It does all that the apple tv does, plus a lot more!
I would recommend this to a friend!
-1point
1out of 3found this review helpful.
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Review 3 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
works as described
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Features
5.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Ease of Set Up
3.0
What's great about it: One terabyte of storage
What's not so great: Could use an SD card slot.
The first one purchased had a bad power supply and would not start.
The exchange at Best Buy went smoothly. The second new unit is working fine. It absorbed the photos and music and videos from my networked computer, no problem. Internet access was easy to setup. So far, I like this unit better than some of the others I have tried.
The exchange at Best Buy went smoothly. The second new unit is working fine. It absorbed the photos and music and videos from my networked computer, no problem. Internet access was easy to setup. So far, I like this unit better than some of the others I have tried.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
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Review 4 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Took 3 hrs to load 200G then 2 hrs to scan it.
Customer Rating
1.0
Posted by: Floridaking
from Ft. Lauderdale
on 02/21/2012
Value for Price
1.0
Features
1.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Ease of Set Up
1.0
What's great about it: Nothing
What's not so great: Takes hours to “Scan media” every time I cycle power.
Takes hours to “Scan media” every time I cycle power. I am trying to use a 1Tb external hard drive. After all the time to set it up, it could not see half of the files it loaded. Then I cycled power and it started “Scan media” again, . . .come back in 2 hrs.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
-3points
0out of 3found this review helpful.
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Review 5 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
No more cable
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: KCtheater
from Kansas City, MO
on 02/05/2012
Value for Price
3.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Yes. use this in place of cable TV
What's not so great: nothing
I've stopped paying the high price for cable tv and use this instead, Hulu Plus and Netflix is all I need. The large network drive holds all of my pictures and music files - making for a great slideshow with my music playing in the background.. I created a folder for my music and pictures and created sub-folders within my picture folder, so when I pull them up on the TV I can pick and chose which photo album I want to see or show my friends and family. Very easy to use.. excellent HD quality..
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
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Review 6 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Streams HD Perfectly
Customer Rating
5.0
What's great about it: It works Great
What's not so great: Don't recommend wireless Streaming Video
Upgraded from WD Live TV & I like the new on screen menu and the 1 Tb Hd makes this a great deal.
I also upgraded to the WD Livewire and now I can stream all the HD content from my PC perfectly. No studders or freezes like I was experiencing with my wireless router (Linksys 610N)
Now my grandkids don't complain about the movies stopping and shuttering.
If you are looking to Stream video from your PC - This is a great product.
I also upgraded to the WD Livewire and now I can stream all the HD content from my PC perfectly. No studders or freezes like I was experiencing with my wireless router (Linksys 610N)
Now my grandkids don't complain about the movies stopping and shuttering.
If you are looking to Stream video from your PC - This is a great product.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 7 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
great product for the most part
Customer Rating
4.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
4.0
What's great about it: 2 in 1
What's not so great: no built in wifi
I had been connecting my laptop to my tv to watch movies, but it was inconvenient (no remote and tied up the laptop). So I bought the wd tv media player and connected it to an external hard drive. But, it seemed to lag. I returned it for this and am much happier. A friend was looking for both a 1tb backup drive and a media player. I recommended this because it does both for the price of just a 1tb external drive. He seems to be happy so far. It took 15 hours to copy 400gb worth of movies.
Positives:
It has no lag. 2 in 1 so less gadgets cluttering up space. It's attractive and small. Plenty of input/output options (composite/component rca, 2 usb, hdmi, ethernet). It's cheaper than buying a media player and 1tb external hard drive separately . It automatically groups movies, photos, etc into separate categories on the main menu. You can also have folders and sub-folders like "comedy", "action", etc to organize movies, photos, etc.
It has no lag. 2 in 1 so less gadgets cluttering up space. It's attractive and small. Plenty of input/output options (composite/component rca, 2 usb, hdmi, ethernet). It's cheaper than buying a media player and 1tb external hard drive separately . It automatically groups movies, photos, etc into separate categories on the main menu. You can also have folders and sub-folders like "comedy", "action", etc to organize movies, photos, etc.
The negatives:
I tried using Facebook, but it is a hassle trying to type in your username and p/w via the remote. It is a nuisance is having to copy via ethernet cables through a router vs directly from the wd tv media hub and computer via usb. Also, I was unable to set the proper time. It was 1 hr and 10 minutes ahead when I selected est. Lastly, there is no physical manual - you have to d/load it. No built-in wi-fi.
I tried using Facebook, but it is a hassle trying to type in your username and p/w via the remote. It is a nuisance is having to copy via ethernet cables through a router vs directly from the wd tv media hub and computer via usb. Also, I was unable to set the proper time. It was 1 hr and 10 minutes ahead when I selected est. Lastly, there is no physical manual - you have to d/load it. No built-in wi-fi.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
3out of 4found this review helpful.
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Review 8 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Great Product
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Performance
4.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: 1TB, Play anything,
What's not so great: Transfer Speed Limited, Using a ethernet cable to transfer file between computer and WD
I can play any type of movie format (mkv, avi, mp4, etc) with no problem! I do have a problem between WD and Wind0ws 7, and I'm thinking of buying a usb-to-usb cord to plug between both of them via a usb (I don't know if it going to work, but worth trying).
I would recommend this to a friend!
+3points
3out of 3found this review helpful.
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Review 9 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Nice if you don't have children
Customer Rating
3.0
Value for Price
2.0
Ease of Use
2.0
Performance
3.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: picture quality
What's not so great: lack of parental restrictions
I bought this primarily for file sharing with the side benefit of displaying slideshows and running Netflix. In retrospect, I should have bought either an XBox or a new BlueRay player since they do virtually the same thing now-a-days.
The quality of the player is good. The picture quality while running slideshows is great. It is nice to have Pandora playing in the background. Western Digital is keeping the device updated and occasionally adding features. It is good to see a manufacturer that remembers a product after it is released.
On the downside, the parental features are not very good. I would like the ability to restrict certain apps and adult content. Some of the YouTube and other apps have videos which I wouldn't want my children viewing. WD gives you an all on or all off restrictive feature which is not very helpful.
The quality of the player is good. The picture quality while running slideshows is great. It is nice to have Pandora playing in the background. Western Digital is keeping the device updated and occasionally adding features. It is good to see a manufacturer that remembers a product after it is released.
On the downside, the parental features are not very good. I would like the ability to restrict certain apps and adult content. Some of the YouTube and other apps have videos which I wouldn't want my children viewing. WD gives you an all on or all off restrictive feature which is not very helpful.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
-3points
1out of 5found this review helpful.
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Review 10 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Plays Everything!!
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
4.0
What's great about it: Everyting
What's not so great: No Wifi
This thing plays everything I have thrown at it. Great picture and great audio. Not sure why but the share kept unmounting from the network for the first week I had it. Since then its been very stable. Nice and portable. Syncs nicley with icloud.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+1point
1out of 1found this review helpful.
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Review 11 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Decent product
Customer Rating
4.0
Value for Price
4.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Performance
3.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Easy to set up, good price
What's not so great: Performance
Very easy to set up, Overall very happy with the product. The only issue I have is the performance when adding medias. It takes too long to compile the media library.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
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Review 12 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
For what you pay: Outstanding
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
4.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Easy to use, easy to setup and accepts wide range of formats
What's not so great: Speed in certain cases but this is minimal
I can only guess that those who have install or technical issues with this item are not very tech savvy: Plug and Play. If you run the lan cable then you will experience some slowdown as the media library will constantly update.
I have had this for about six months now and I give it to WD creating a product that is very versatile with formats and function. With one terabyte of storage it will take you a while to fill this thing up and even then you can still couple an external hard drive to it giving you additional space.
Plays formats that my laptop will not play including flac files, certain avis and mkv files.
Some of my favorite features include the look up function where the unit uses the title of a video, cd, etc and downloads info of said media complete with dates, actors, summary and jpeg. I also like the Youtube and weather features which means I'm not tied to my pc when I want to enjoy YouTube videos.
Hook this up to your network and it becomes your one stop for all of your media and streaming. My one and only gripe is that sometimes the unit (because it is updating the library) will slow and almost freeze on you but this is rare and usually occurs after downloading new files onto the unit, power failure or reconnecting my external HD.
Updates for the product have also made it better; in the past the HDMI output was limited to 720p but has since been updated and now includes 1080p @ 60Hz. You can set up the unit to auto adjust for the optimal output as well. Additional features have been added also but I seldom use them.
For what I paid I am very satisfied and am planning to get a second unit in the near future.
I have had this for about six months now and I give it to WD creating a product that is very versatile with formats and function. With one terabyte of storage it will take you a while to fill this thing up and even then you can still couple an external hard drive to it giving you additional space.
Plays formats that my laptop will not play including flac files, certain avis and mkv files.
Some of my favorite features include the look up function where the unit uses the title of a video, cd, etc and downloads info of said media complete with dates, actors, summary and jpeg. I also like the Youtube and weather features which means I'm not tied to my pc when I want to enjoy YouTube videos.
Hook this up to your network and it becomes your one stop for all of your media and streaming. My one and only gripe is that sometimes the unit (because it is updating the library) will slow and almost freeze on you but this is rare and usually occurs after downloading new files onto the unit, power failure or reconnecting my external HD.
Updates for the product have also made it better; in the past the HDMI output was limited to 720p but has since been updated and now includes 1080p @ 60Hz. You can set up the unit to auto adjust for the optimal output as well. Additional features have been added also but I seldom use them.
For what I paid I am very satisfied and am planning to get a second unit in the near future.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+4points
4out of 4found this review helpful.
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Review 13 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Flexible, but tough to use
Customer Rating
2.0
Value for Price
2.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Performance
4.0
Ease of Installation
2.0
What's great about it: Plays many formats
What's not so great: Difficult to use
I bought the WD TV Hub after I had an Apple TV, and now I appreciate how easy the ATV was to install and use.
The documentation is not very informative, so you will find yourself online with help forums a lot. There are lots of quirks and bugs in the system.
The unit is very flexible, but the interface is not good. I have still not been able to stream using this product because I cannot get file sharing to work with Windows 7.
I am very computer and home theater savvy, if you aren't then avoid this unit, else you will tear your hair out.
The documentation is not very informative, so you will find yourself online with help forums a lot. There are lots of quirks and bugs in the system.
The unit is very flexible, but the interface is not good. I have still not been able to stream using this product because I cannot get file sharing to work with Windows 7.
I am very computer and home theater savvy, if you aren't then avoid this unit, else you will tear your hair out.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
-5points
1out of 7found this review helpful.
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Review 14 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Perfect for the movie and show downloader
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: jayvegas
from las vegas
on 12/16/2011
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
Plays a very wide format of video files, works great as a media player plus hulu plus and netfilx. I have owned and retured the Apple TV 2, Sony, LG, Logitech and Ruku. This does everything, so very satisfied. Great easy to use interface and setup, perfect for using whole home server. Especially with WD TV Live on other TVs. Awesome!!!!!!
I would recommend this to a friend!
+6points
6out of 6found this review helpful.
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Review 15 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Great concept that fails
Customer Rating
1.0
Value for Price
2.0
Ease of Use
1.0
Performance
1.0
Ease of Installation
1.0
What's great about it: feeds content to various devices
What's not so great: difficult to install and configure. Poor documentation, poorer support
I have had the WD TVLive HUB for a year now. I purchased it as a way to store and stream music and pictures around my home. The primary problems I have had are with installation, and lack of support. You will need an advanced computer degree (I have one) to configure the device and fight through the periodic firmware updates that disable functions. It is obvious that no-one does any testing of the firmware. They rely upon their install base to do the testing. And then issue yet another firmware update to try and fix the issues that have been found. If you are still considering this device. goto www.wdc.com. Hover over support and visit the online forums and community. Good luck.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
-6points
5out of 16found this review helpful.
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Review 16 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Excellent Multimedia Hub For Your Home
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: Stiles17
from New Hampshire
on 11/25/2011
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: Massive compatibility with many formats in video and photo areas supported. Reliability.
What's not so great: Nothing. Six months and still no problems. Simple TV interface.
This is an excellent multimedia hub. It does what it claims and it is very reliable. Streaming is brilliant, playback of movies and TV shows from a vast assortment of file types (MKV, .TS, .avi, etc.) is outstanding, the file menu format is very easy...
...and this leads me to a review of some of the other reviews. I simply cannot understand how people could rate this negatively. It is incredibly simple to setup and the remote and function menus are very intuitive. Western Digital (WD) makes this product to ISO9001 standards as well as six sigma management processes. This means that, statistically, there are an average of 3.4 defects PER MILLION made. That's pretty good. To hear people claim in these reviews their product "doesn't work" or "isn't working properly like it should" is, statistically speaking and rhetorically speaking, absurd. What this means is that that user does not know how to follow instructions!
I'm not a rep for WD, but I give credit where credit is due and I do not see any reason for low star rating just because of user error. This thing works, and it works well---exactly as advertised. Complement it with the Live Wire setup and it becomes very dynamic, allowing you to set it up essentially anywhere you want so long as you have an electrical outlet.
My experience with this has been that of reliability and massive functionality thanks to its amazing library of digital formats it can work with. It is small, is not a dust magnet, looks classy, and power consumption is low. What else could you ask for? It's all right here.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+18points
19out of 20found this review helpful.
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Review 17 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Class Act Product
Customer Rating
5.0
Posted by: reviewer5131
from Los Angeles, CA
on 11/23/2011
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
5.0
Performance
5.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
The item is truly a great product. I liked it so much I have one on every TV in my home as well as I have installed them in 2 of my vehicles so we can watch our favorite shows on the go.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
5out of 8found this review helpful.
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Review 18 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
Good..not great
Customer Rating
4.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
3.0
Performance
3.0
Ease of Installation
5.0
What's great about it: disk space, size
What's not so great: UI
So far, this has lived upto expectations. I knew what I was getting into. I knew from other reviews that the UI is not snappy. But so far, it has played back everything I've thrown at it. I like that I can access it on the network and map it to a drive letter on Windows. I download stuff directly on to this. Even when it is on standby, the drive will be available on the network. That is convenient for overnight downloads. They recently updated the firmware and added support for podcasts. It can do Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Blockbuster, Youtube.
You can connect your own USB wi-fi adapter (unlike some big brand blu-ray players) . I've also connected a Lenovo keyboard, which has been great for searches.
If only they make the UI snappier, I would give this 5 on 5.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+4points
6out of 8found this review helpful.
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Review 19 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
great media player
Customer Rating
5.0
Value for Price
5.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Performance
4.0
Ease of Installation
4.0
What's great about it: many apps
What's not so great: slow to download large files over wireless network
after a slow start getting used to the media player i am very happy with it. it takes a while to download a 2gb movie, however once it's loaded on the internal hard desk it plays like a charm
I would recommend this to a friend!
+1point
2out of 3found this review helpful.
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Review 20 for Western Digital WD TV Live Hub Media Center with 1TB Hard Drive
This thing stinks!
Customer Rating
1.0
Value for Price
1.0
Ease of Use
4.0
Performance
3.0
Ease of Installation
4.0
What's great about it: Nothing
What's not so great: Just a lazy looking product.
Basically what you get is a computer that can hold your media files. At this price it is not worth it. The interface is dated, it doesn't show video information, just file names. You have no idea if you watched a TV episode already, you just have to remember what you watched. No integration with any of the Internet database sites. If you are looking for a first gen Apple TV replacement, this is not that item. It refused to display videos after I upgraded the firmware. I had to downgrade and then upgrade. If you use with a Mac, you just drag and drop so that is about the only bonus over dealing with iTunes syncing.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
-25points
3out of 31found this review helpful.
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