WD Live Streaming vs Hub

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

I am considering buying either the new streaming player or the hub.

Just to be sure, it would be stupid to buy the hub right?

Since the streaming player is faster, cheaper, Wifi, and USB hub complatible. + It has the hub interface too.

Streaming Player - $100

2TB HD - $80.

or

Hub w/ 1TB - $200.

Edit: I forgot to meantion, I keep my files locally. So the external hard drive would have a significant speed advantage compared to the WD Hub right?

2

Looked at like that the decision is a no-brainer.

The only reason I can think of for buying the hub is if you don’t think you’ll ever need more than 1tb, you don’t need wi-fi, and you don’t like the look of two boxes under your TV.

Steve W

3

The nice thing about the Hub is that it gives you extra space without using any extra space on your router. I know the OP only uses USB drives, but thats a rare case- most people are using Network drives. Rather than having 2 ports on my ethernet used up, I use a single port and get my WD TV, and a hard drive on the same port. You can add wireless of course, but since N wireless is still much slower than a wired connection, going with a wired solution is always better (at least for the forseeable future- in 5-10 years this may no longer be the case)

4

Hi Ardvark:

I am currently connected to my WDTV Live via wireless N at 150 Mbps, which is greater than the wired 100 Mbps.

5

It has a gigabit NIC not a 10/100 - only the old Live / Live + had 10/100’s. I suppose for those older devices you could (in theory) get faster wireless speeds, but any kind of interference would cut that substantially. In generally your wireless connection speed would need to be about 5 times (minimum) an equivelent wired speed in order to consider them equal imho.

6

Actually, the new Live is only 10/100.

7

Are you sure about that? Seems kinda strange to go backwards…

8

Yup.

9

http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_wd_tv_live_review

WD TV Live Specs

  • 1.2" x 3.9" x 4.9"
  • 0.42 lb
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • WiFi (802.11n)
  • Dual USB 2.0 ports
  • HDMI out
  • Optical out
  • Remote Control
  • NTSC Model (WDBHG70000NBK)
  • PAL Model (WDBGXT0000NBK)
  • One year warranty
10

I have read conflicting info about that. Even the WD press release says it is a gig:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4931/western-digital-introduces-new-wd-tv-live-streaming-media-player-with-spotify-in-tow

yet another site basically said it was technically a gig but only had the speed of 100. You will read confliting things all over the web . Some of the reports I have read said it was slow , but still faster than what I got out of the plus.

11

You’ll note that the link you provide above *IS NOT* from Western Digital.

HERE is that same document from WD:   http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/AAG/ENG/4178-705254.pdf

You’ll note that it does NOT say GIGABIT ETHERNET, it says “ETHERNET / WiFi”.

The one on AnandTech’s website didn’t even list Wireless.  It even has a different revision in the bottom.

So it’s obvious to me that WDC changed the brochuree before it went public (both are dated SEPTEMBER) and Anandtech didn’t update the info.

12

Even WD are not quite sure 100% on whether it’s 10/100 or gigabit ??

link here

13

I have my new WD TV Streamer hooked up to a Linksys E3000 Gigabit router, and the WD is connecting at 100Mb/s with a 2 foot high quality cable. My two high end desktops are connected at 1000Mb/s. Perhaps the HW is there to support GigE, but right now, it does not support it. It would be great to have GigE for file streaming & copying on the network.

Mike

WD TV Live Streaming Media w/ V1.03.10

14

markinuk wrote:

Even WD are not quite sure 100% on whether it’s 10/100 or gigabit ??

 

link here

Web page has now been edited and the word “gigabit” has been erased.