History

The Media Center, branded by Western Digital

Western Digital

Western Digital Corporation is one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world. It has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970 by Alvin B...

, is a 7,200-rpm

Revolutions per minute

Revolutions per minute is a measure of the frequency of a rotation. It annotates the number of full rotations completed in one minute around a fixed axis...

 hard drive (either 160GB

Gigabyte

The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...

 or 250GB), combined with a reader of CompactFlash

CompactFlash

CompactFlash is a mass storage device format used in portable electronic devices. Most CompactFlash devices contain flash memory in a standardized enclosure. The format was first specified and produced by SanDisk in 1994...

 Type I and II, Microdrive

Microdrive

Microdrive is a brand name for a miniature, 1-inch hard disk designed to fit in a CompactFlash Type II slot. The release of similar drives by other makers has led to them often being referred to as 'microdrives'...

, Memory Stick

Memory Stick

Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998, and is also used in general to describe the whole family of Memory Sticks...

, Memory Stick Pro, MultiMediaCard

MultiMediaCard

The MultiMediaCard is a flash memory memory card standard. Unveiled in 1997 by Siemens AG and SanDisk, it is based on Toshiba's NAND-based flash memory, and is therefore much smaller than earlier systems based on Intel NOR-based memory such as CompactFlash. MMC is about the size of a postage...

, Secure Digital

Secure Digital

Secure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...

, and SmartMedia

SmartMedia

SmartMedia is a flash memory card standard owned by Toshiba, with capacities ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB. SmartMedia memory cards are no longer manufactured.- History :...

 media. It can use either FireWire or USB to interface with a personal computer

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

 (Farrance, 2004).

Although branded as a Media Center

Home theater PC

A Home Theater PC or Media Center appliance is a convergence device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that supports video, photo, music playback, and sometimes video recording functionality...

 this product is not a traditional media center and is nothing but a storage device and cannot actually play any media to a TV or Monitor. It must be plugged into a computer using the appropriate software to play any media.

Current products

The product is now called WD Live, and supports Netflix, Pandora, and other services. The upgraded version, the WD TV Hub Live, supports Mediafly, Pandora, Youtube, Blockbuster, and Netflix. It comes with a 1 terabyte internal hard drive and can sync media using a "watched folders" paradigm from either a Mac or a PC. It does not support wi-fi natively, but this can be remedied by purchasing an adapter.

Seagate

Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. Incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland and has its principal executive offices in Scotts Valley, California, United States.-1970s:On November 1, 1979...

, Viewsonic

ViewSonic

ViewSonic Corporation is a manufacturer and provider of visual technology, specifically CRT monitors, liquid crystal displays, projectors, plasma displays, HDTV technology, and mobile products, including Mini and All-in-One PCs and wireless monitors....

 and Iomega

Iomega

Iomega is an American producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks. On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US $213M...

  have similar media hard drives that can be plugged into a TV. They generally support Netflix, but few other services. The Roku

Roku

Roku , is an American, privately held, consumer electronics company that sells home digital media products. The Company is based in Saratoga, California.- Company profile and products :...

 has a USB port on one of its models which can be used with an external hard drive.

The WD TV Hub Live does syncing, which makes it a DLNA-compliant media extender, as well as a hard drive and streaming device. The WD Live doesn't have this feature.