Simple, Customizable Onscreen Menu
As the WD TV Live Hub powers up, you'll notice the difference immediately. A beautiful photo greets you as the home screen background. Media categories and menu items line the bottom of the screen in a carousel. The choices are obvious.
The unit comes preloaded with photos from 3 creative masters to use for the background. Western Digital showed attention to detail as they included biographies on the photographers. If you prefer to use one of your own photos as the background, you can change it anytime by pressing the options button when viewing the photo you want to use. Likewise, the menu's appearance can be customized as new themes become available from members of a Western Digital online community.
Straightforward Remote Control is Exceptional
Rarely can I say that a media player's remote control is a true asset. The WD TV Live Hub's remote is exceptionally well thought-out and straightforward. Colored buttons let you access sub-menus to filter, change from local storage to network media folders and servers, change from file lists to thumbnails, or access your favorite files.
You can even customize the remote buttons to create other shortcuts. The colored buttons can be assigned to a category or folder; the number buttons can be assigned to a specific song or folder. Unfortunately, it was not evident how to assign the buttons to files.
You can add folders or files to your favorite list. You can add folders or files to your queue. You can filter your music with the green key.
Bottom Line
If you are looking for a network media player and/or a network media server, this should be at the top of your list. The WD TV Live Hub does a great job of both accessing your network media and acting as a central storage location from which you can stream media to other computers or media players in your home. Stunning quality pictures and sound, fast performance, tons of options to organize and find your media, Facebook uploads, and lots of content will make this a central addition to your home theater.
Update 12/20/11 - New Services and Features Added: VUDU, SnagFilms, XOS College Sports, SEC Digital Network, Comedy Time, Watch Mojo. Also available, the WD TV Live remote app for iOS (Android coming soon).
Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our
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