Western Digital TV Live Hub media center sports 1TB hard drive

Western Digital has rolled out its new TV Live Hub media center, a full HD 1080p media player that sports a massive 1TB networked hard drive.

The TV Live Hub is quite the compact home entertainment center. Compatible with DLNA/UPnP-enabled devices and most file formats, the TV Live Hub is ready to connect to Blu-ray players, gaming consoles (Xbox 360 and PS3) as well as Mac and PC computers on the network. Furthermore, it should be able to reach "virtually all TV sets" via HDMI (granted your TV isn't a tiny gray box from the 1980s).

As for online media, the TV Live Hub has been programmed to provide access to Netflix's Watch Instantly service, Pandora, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and video podcasts from various TV channels.

Even though there are a pair of USB ports for connecting to additional devices like digital cameras, strangely there isn't built-in Wi-Fi. But you can achieve this connectivity option with an adapter.

Available now, the TV Live Hub media center is being sold exclusively at Best Buy for $199.99. That might seem like a lot for a media player, but given the hard drive space and how many on-demand services you can access with it, it might pay off in the long run. Think of it as two to three months of cable payments, and then you just have to pay for the little stuff like the Netflix subscription.