I love my WD TV Live Hub or at least what it could be. But a few things continually block the experience.
-Slow Network Access. 100 Mbit is sooo slow when copying HD media files to the unit. Average of 8MBps.
-Reboots and Re-indexing sometimes when you go to use it. Usually when your not in the mood for the elongated wait.
-Generally slow in media menus and apps. (iView in Australia is an example)
If WD produced a “new” high speed(processor and ethernet) high quality unit with 2-4TB storage and 4k support. Apps support (Netflix, iView etc) just like the Live-hub.
I’d buy it in a flash!. Be happy to spend $300-$400 for something like that. But it seems they are re-coiling from this market space.
In any case, my question to all and the experts in the forum: What’s out there that’s good? There is sooo much 5h1t on the market it’s impossible to even know where to start. What’s a quality high speed product with quality firmware support in a new package that can store my existing collection(hord) and be a fast upgrade from where this excelent WDTV Live Hub unit left off?
Not Windows Media Centre or Apple TV please.
There are several directions in which to go. Just like anything else, no one way is the wrong way. It is a matter of what do you want, which you have pretty much stated above. Here are some suggestions ALL of which would pretty much involve using Kodi and/or Emby.
Take the hard drive out of the Hub, very simple to do. Put it in a PC or connect it to your network. What you want to end up with is 1TB of shared storage and that’s about the best you can do with the Hub when you quit using it.
Zotac Zboxes are very reasonable and run Windows or can run open elec or a flavor of Linux. Most other mini PCs can do this as well. But Zotac Zbox B1320-U-W2 is my choice because I am most familiar with Windows OS and I can get things done so I can spend more time watching my movies than I do learning a new OS. Oh, and Windows Media Center is NOT even needed or included with the pre-installed Windows 8.1 With Bing. It just is not needed.
Android TV boxes are plentifull and right now Nvidia’s Shield seems to be the Hot lick. There are tons of these devices available so read, read and read some more about them before you make a decision. It is VERY easy to get one that is a total peice of garbage.
See…no mention of anything that starts with an i 
I’ve had teh same issues bugging me with my Liev Hub and finally retired it after many years. I have an raspberry pi 2 running kodi and its brilliant. Great remote apps on phones and even your Tv remote will control it through CEC. I still have all my movies stores on the Live Hub which is now just connected to my router and acts as a network storage and have told kodi thats where ll my files are. I also strugled to copy movies to it but since I disbaled twonky server its much better (for copying movies to from my mac)
Best of both worlds
southafricanrob wrote:
(snip)…I also strugled to copy movies to it but since I disbaled twonky server its much better (for copying movies to from my mac)
Best of both worlds
Thanks for the responses guys. Might try disabling twonky to see if it improves. The other consideration is I’m not sure if that’s what the kids are using for their ipods and access to our music library on the Hub. (all our purchased music is there (conventional) and online). I have no problem of the reliability of the network and copying. The only time theres an issues is when the network prompts the box to life and it decides to do a restart/index (flashing WD logo). 10-20 minutes later!!!
But even then the Max throughput I will get out of 100Mbit is around 10MB/s yeah? And for a 15GB 3D HD movie that’s over an hour just to copy. Perhaps I’m just being precious but Netflix on the PS4 as a comparison is fast and responsive and unencumbering (a transparent tool). But the PS4 only streams, cannot store.
No probs in copying stuff off. I can just pull out my extension 2TB USB drive, copy off the files, clear it, and then use it as a sync drive over night.
First world problems…
