14 DAY TRIAL // Western Digital seems really serious when it comes down to its media player line, the company just announcing the new WD TV Live Hub that adds media center capabilities to its already impressive WD TV series, this new device coming in with a 1TB networked hard drive.
What this means is that you can now store all you content centralized on WD'd hub while networked devices such as the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3, as well as WD's own TV Live Plus HD media player, will be able to stream files right of it without having to exchange media files via those pesky USB flash drives or other devices of this sort.
Digital media can be easily transferred to the internal drive from shared folders on PCs and Macs on the network or directly from external hard drives, thumb drives, camcorders or cameras connected via one of the two USB ports, the WD TV Live Hub also being DLNA certified.
Besides its media center role, WD's latest offering can also be used as a regular media center device, this being able to playback locally stored Full-HD 1080p videos as well as Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, CNN, ESPN, MTV or NBC content, to name just a few of the streaming services compatible with WD's solution.
Other features include HDMI 1.4, composite video and component video outputs, automatic sync of shared digital media folders from PCs and Macs, the TV Live Hub also coming with a programmable remote, WiFi connectivity being available as an option via an USB dongle.
"The WD TV Live Hub media center lets users create a personalized media jukebox that brings your entire personal content collection and the best of Internet content to the biggest screen in the house," said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD's branded products group.
"With the WD TV Live Hub media center, consumers can take their home entertainment experience to the next level, streaming personal content to multiple rooms at the same time, so they can play a Netflix video on their HDTV screen in the family room, while sharing vacation slideshows on the computer in their home office."
In the U.S., the WD TV Live Hub media center is initially available exclusively at Best Buy online for $200.