Hi. I’m planning to get a WDTV Live Hub in order to watch downloaded vids on my TV instead of the PC. Someone on another forum has worried me with this comment: “Every time you turn it on it spends at least an hour compiling a media library by scanning the local drive and all network shares for media. Obviously this period will vary depending on how many files you have, but there are reports about this process never ending for some people. During this complation period the device is pretty unusable, as anything you try to play constantly stutters and stammers, and features such as the file sorting don’t work. You can switch this feature off, but when I tried it I couldn’t find a way to make it see any files on the internal drive or the network at all. Apparently it is designed to never be switched off!” Is there anything to this or is the user just not operating his Hub correctly? My thanks for any replies.
The only time the Hub recompiles the Media Library is from a cold start (i.e. completely turned off).
If you’re running the unit as I imagine most people do, by putting it into and out of standby from the remote, the unit resumes straight away and is ready to go in seconds.
If you’re obsessed with your power usage and insist on turning it completely off every time, you may have issues with the Library compiling, especially if you have a lot of media. My collection is modest and doesn’t take that long to compile anyway.
Thanks PixelPower, that’s good to know. Perhaps you could you tell me about noise - is there any (from e.g. fan) when in use or in standby? Thanks again.
pooksahib wrote:
Thanks PixelPower, that’s good to know. Perhaps you could you tell me about noise - is there any (from e.g. fan) when in use or in standby? Thanks again.
Some people (me) cannot hear the noise (from fan and hard disc) but to others its a real pain. I assume thats its all to do with the unit you get and how susceptible you are to that type of thing.
pooksahib wrote:
Thanks PixelPower, that’s good to know. Perhaps you could you tell me about noise - is there any (from e.g. fan) when in use or in standby? Thanks again.
I have mine sitting atop a TiVo Series 3 that has its own drive and an external HD enclosure.
So I have three boxes in my Master BR. I think the Hub is, by far, the quietest. I don’t notice any sound unless I’m standing right next to it, and then it’s very faint (for all three combined) But like PixelPower says, some people are more aware of it than others… I’m good at dismissing noise. At the height, I had seven people plus a dog living in my house!
The yearly usage in standbye 24/7 is about 70 kwh. That’s 16 euro in Holland. Waste of money imho, I always turn the thing completely off. Have about 1000 video files, 100 cd’s and 4000 pictures. When I turn the device on it takes about 4 minutes to compile (more if a lot of stuff has changed).
The noise level is very good. I don’t hear the hub.
I don’t hear mine at all, so the noise level is very good.
However everytime I add a single file to the hub or my nas, it won’t be visible until I have completely restarted the unit and wait for the media compiling to finish.
At the moment it takes 4-5 minutes, I have about 500 photos, 200 movies and 50 music albums, but once I’m finished converting my dvd’s, music cd’s and organizing our family albums then I’ll be having more than 600 movies, 1000 home video clips, 20000 photos and 2500 music albums.
How long will it then take for the media to be compiled?
If WD doesn’t pull a rabbit out of the firmware hat, then I’m worried that it will be to much a hassle to use the hub for such things.
I’m not trying to scare you away, it is a great media player, but if WD doesn’t find a solution to the media compiling issues when adding new media, then it most likely will be a bad choice for people who have +10000 media files.
When I add media to the Hub’s HDD, it’s compiled and visible pretty much straight away, not sure what’s going on with your unit Frillen…
Agreed on the NAS refresh though; rebooting is too much hassle just to see a handful of new files. It seems like a manual refresh for a network folder, accessible via the options button, would be the easiest thing in the world to add…
As for noise, I never hear the Hub’s fan or the HDD. It’s in an open-fronted entertainment cabinet across the room, under the TV. I can only assume that those who complain of noise are hypersensitive, have the Hub in the bedroom, or have a bad unit.
Many thanks for all the replies. I took delivery of my Hub today and am very pleased (so far). The fan noise is, thankfully, a non-issue.
As for file transfer, I didn’t want to be faffing about with ethernet cables (I only have the one) so I’ve used PixelPower’s solution. It worked fine for 2 small folders, fingers crossed it’ll do the same for the bigger ones to come. Here’s the method for anyone interested:
- Copy your media from your PC to the External HDD.
- Plug the External HDD into the Hub
- Let it do its media library scan.
- When it offers to Sync, press Cancel.
- Go to the Files tab.
- Press the Red / Source button and select Local Storage , then your External HDD.
- Navigate to the Folder / Files you want to transfer.
- Press Options on the remote. Select Copy.
- Navigate to the location on the Hub you want to Copy to.
- OK the selection and the files will copy over.
