WD Live Hub over my Wifi router

Community Archives WD TV Live Hub Firmware
1

Just wondering whether there is an easier way to access my WD Live Hub on my PC. The following is how I set up my network:

  • WD Live Hub is connected using an Ethernet cable (Network cable) to my Wifi Router in another room

  • I use a Wifi Adapter dongle to access internet from my desktop (using the Wifi router in the other room), which is connected to the WD Live Hub

My questions are:

  1. Is there a way that I can access files stashed on my WD Live Hub over the Wifi Network?

  2. Is there a way that I can use my WD Live Hub as a remote harddrive to access and stash away my files using some application on my Android Smart Phone?

  3. Is there a way that I can use my WD Live Hub device to serve as a network drive to access my files over my PC or any connected device?

Thanking you all and the support staff in anticipation that this query would be responded at the earliest enabling me to start sharing my files over this great device. Cheers!!

2

In response to your questions.

  1. Is there a way that I can access files stashed on my WD Live Hub over the Wifi Network?

Yes, the files stored on the internal hard drive can be accessed over your network by mapping to the hard drive inside the Live Hub. Depending on your computer OS, you can use the help file to look for instructions on how to map a network drive. The default file path to the internal hard drive is [\wdtvlivehub\wdtvlivehub](file://%5C%5Cwdtvlivehub%5Cwdtvlivehub)

  1. Is there a way that I can use my WD Live Hub as a remote harddrive to access and stash away my files using some application on my Android Smart Phone?

Currently, the only Android app that will work with the Live Hub is WDPhotos.

  1. Is there a way that I can use my WD Live Hub device to serve as a network drive to access my files over my PC or any connected device?

Yes, once the drive is mapped on your computer, you can access it as a network drive. Mobile devices can only access photos through WDPhotos.

3

I routinely access my Hub from a Motorola Photon and an Asus Tablet (Both use Android OS) when it’s connected to my home wifi network using several different apps depending on what I want to access. ES File Explorer will find your Hub. If you tinker with it enough you can make it go directly to the Movies folder on the Hub. You can do anything with ES that you can do with windoz file system and more. If you want to watch a movie or listen to music or look at pictures it can do it but you might want to get a good app to play video files like BS Player or MX Player. There are also apps that will let you remotely start/stop and adjust volume on media files and play pictures and MP3s as well. I use Bubble UPNP. Lets say you have a video file on the PC and want it to play on your Hub but you don’t want to copy that file over to the Hub to play it. Bubble UPNP is your answer. You can send it over your network without copying it to the Hub and it will play on the Hub. You can do it with pictures and MP3 files as well.

 

 

Now if you want to be away from home and do pretty much the same thing via the internet, it can be done. You have to run a program on the PC (yes the PC has to be on when you’re not home to do this) that sees the Hub and makes the access by way of the app on your smart phone. PlayOn  can do this. You can try it for free for a couple of weeks but then you have to pay to register the software. It’s about 80.00 but well worth the price, if you follow the link and read up on it. If you’re one of those who is talented enough to be able to program code you’ll fine it’s very simple to write your own “plugins” for PlayOn in LUA programming language. Don’t fret if you can’t there are already tons of plugins available. My wife is out of town a lot on business and we watch movies on the Hub using this method. She on her tablet (sometimes plugged in to a HDMI TV) and I on our TV at home all the while chatting on the phone about what we’re watching.

 

So I would say, in a round about way, the answer to all 3 of your questions would be yes. (You just have to figure it out) :slight_smile: