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Television Media Entertainment

Hulu Testing Client App; Boxee Dispute Explained 166

Posted by kdawson from the my-way-or-the-i-way dept.
N!NJA sends in word of Hulu's new beta section, Hulu Labs, which is now showcasing Hulu Desktop, a client that runs on both Windows and Mac. The author believes that Hulu Desktop explains why Hulu has been so touchy about Boxee. "This clearly explains why Hulu has been so persistent in blocking Boxee — an open-source media-center application for Macs, Apple TVs, and other devices — from including its content. Since Hulu provides free, ad-based mainstream content from the largest studios and networks in the business, they are under tight constraints imposed by these major players. We have already seen good examples of where Hulu is heading with integrated advertising inside the browser. A desktop client produced in-house will be much more conducive to monetizing Hulu using these kinds of campaigns."
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Hulu Testing Client App; Boxee Dispute Explained More

Hulu Testing Client App; Boxee Dispute Explained

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  • Why Hulu has been so touchy? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I thought it was the tentacles they used to liquify your brain.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Since when does Hulu have hentai videos?

  • No love for the Penguin? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lordofthechia ( 598872 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:06AM (#28139761)

    This has been asked before, but... where's the Linux version? And will we need a liquid cooled Phenom x4 processor to render the Adobe video in full screen?

    • Re:No love for the Penguin? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JustinOpinion ( 1246824 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:22AM (#28139931)

      where's the Linux version?

      Currently the web-based Hulu works great on Linux. This is why I use Hulu, because they built it in a platform-agnostic way. I can understand them not putting effort into a Linux application... but I just hope they don't get rid of the Hulu web interface totally in favor of a desktop app. That would be a mistake, since in addition to alienating the (small) Linux userbase, they will also exclude the (somewhat larger) group of people leery of installing third-party software, and the (positively huge) group of people who are too lazy to install some silly application just to watch videos on their computer.

      In any case, the Hulu web experience is pretty good, and runs fine full-screen, so I have trouble seeing what this new application can really bring to the table from the user's perspective.

      • Re:No love for the Penguin? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Neeperando ( 1270890 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:56AM (#28140349)
        Support for remote controls. With MythTV I can control everything from the remote, but when I go to Hulu suddenly I have to use the mouse. It's kind of annoying.

        • And that's where this app doesn't get it. The whole point of Boxee is to integrate the experience with a ten foot interface. The standalone app breaks that. If they really wanted to make their app successful, it would come with an SDK from which they can control how it's delivered, but allow developers control how it's presented. This way they get their ad revenue, whilst consumers get the integration with their preferred viewing mechanism.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by s73v3r ( 963317 )
            You're under the assumption that the content companies (Disney, NBC, Fox et. al.) want Hulu to be successful. As it is now, the networks get far more revenues from ads played during TV broadcast than they do over Hulu.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Professor_UNIX ( 867045 )

          So why use it? I never really understood the fascination with Hulu, *especially* if you are watching it on your media center system where you could ostensibly just have recorded the content you're looking to watch from a tuner card. I could understand if they had a vast library of shows and you could go back and find any episode you want to satisfy your desire, but from looking through the catalog of shows I'm interested in they don't ever seem to have more than a few weeks worth of episodes online.

          Some o

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Korin43 ( 881732 )
            Some of us don't see the point in paying $50+ a month to watch one or two TV shows. I know for the last 6 months the only shows I've been watching are Heroes and Dollhouse. They're both ok (probably won't watch Heroes next season), but neither one is worth $50/month. Until Hulu came out, I just didn't watch any TV at all.

        • You could use a wireless keyboard.

          You could map remote control keys to keyboard keys. It's easily doable on Windows, so I assume there's something similar on Linux.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
        In any case, the Hulu web experience is pretty good,

        For Americans. The rest of the world can fuck off.

        Wouldn't be a real problem, except that sites that used to have world-wide compatible embedded video, such as using Youtube, have replaced it with US-only Hulu. It's very annoying to see all those video preview boxes with "Piss off foreigner" messages on them when I'm reading some media related article.

        • Re:No love for the Penguin? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by croddy ( 659025 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @12:09PM (#28140521)
          and we get the same thing when we try to watch stuff on the BBC website. it's not an american thing, it's just a copyright proprietarian thing.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by phrend ( 690126 )

            I would think that it has more to do with the markets that the advertisers are paying to reach... if the advertisers are marketing a product that only exists in the USA, then allowing other countries access to the video doesn't make financial sense. I suspect that the technology will mature over time, and it will reach a point where they can insert local advertisements in to the video streams on the fly, and allow access to every geographic location they receive advertising dollars from... but, what do I k

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by s73v3r ( 963317 )

              Given that Hulu can detect where you're coming from (at least on a country by country basis, they probably could get closer than that if they really wanted to), they could show the same shows, and switch out the ads based on your detected location. So they could sell ad packages based on worldwide views, or views only in Elbonia.

              Of course, the real reason why Hulu doesn't work worldwide is that the broadcasters won't let them. If FOX sells some network over in France the exclusive right to show The Simpsons

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Tetsujin ( 103070 )

              I would think that it has more to do with the markets that the advertisers are paying to reach...

              Not exactly. TV shows have been traditionally licensed out by region, sometimes with exclusive licenses granted for particular regions... So if Hulu wants to license a show to play on its web service, they either need to restrict access to the regions for which they've obtained licenses, or else pay more to get a worldwide license - any other solution would make the other licensees very unhappy (as in, "why am I paying $X for this 'exclusive license' to this show in the European market when Hulu pays appr

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
              I would think that it has more to do with the markets that the advertisers

              Sure, for full episodes. I'm talking about clips, which are arguably news, or advertising the show istelf. A lot of those are Hulu now as well.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
            and we get the same thing when we try to watch stuff on the BBC website.

            I'm not in the UK, I can't watch BBC either. But I can understand the networks themselvwes doing it for full episodes, they didn't use Youtube before anyway, it's the news and review sites that are also often using Hulu now for clips, instead of the unlimited sites thay used before.

            For full episodes, I can find better sources than Hulu.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Sparks23 ( 412116 )

          The BBC iPlayer does the same thing to American users, with a 'Not available in your territory' overlay message for, well, almost everything on their site save BBC News clips. This includes all the little embedded flash clips scattered across the Beeb's website and embedded in articles on other sites. Which is annoying, since trailers, cast interviews and video diaries for BBC-produced series which used to be put on YouTube are now on region-restricted iPlayer. (I suppose I can understand this when deali

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by Thornburg ( 264444 )

        In any case, the Hulu web experience is pretty good, and runs fine full-screen...

        You must watch a different Hulu than I do.

        I'm searching for alternatives, becaues Hulu will randomly stop streaming after 1 or more hours of working fine. And no, it's not my FiOS internet connection. Both Joost and Netflix (when I had a subscription) streamed absolutely fine, but the GD Hulu player hangs the connection. I then have to load a different page of the Hulu site, go back to the video, and skip forward to where I was.

        I wouldn't consider this a problem at all, except that watching 3 ads in a 20

    • This has been asked before, but... where's the Linux version? And will we need a liquid cooled Phenom x4 processor to render the Adobe video in full screen?

      If the dudes from Gnash were smart they would get on RTMP and release their version of the "hulu player". You can already run youtube videos outside of your browser [gnashdev.org].

  • Title says it all.

  • I don't think ads were the sticky issue with Boxee (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IANAAC ( 692242 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:10AM (#28139803)
    As I run Boxee on Ubuntu and I get all the ads from Hulu. Currently using the latest Boxee build, which uses the Hulu public feeds.

    • Re:I don't think ads were the sticky issue with Bo (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timster ( 32400 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @12:16PM (#28140605)

      Ads? No, it doesn't have anything to do with ads. Advertising on Hulu is little more than a shell game for the networks (dba Hulu).

      Consider the history of the music industry on the Internet. The technology for purchasing music online was entirely in place by 1995 when people started to use Netscape Navigator in large numbers. Napster didn't come into play until 1999, iTunes in 2001.

      The general (and correct) opinion is that the music industry wasted several years of opportunity to establish themselves as the major purveyor of online music content on their own terms. When Napster came around people got used to trading music for free, and with iTunes the industry accidentally ceded major amounts of mindshare and control to Apple. I've seen interviews explaining that the reason for the wasted opportunity was that they had no clue what to do, even who they should work with.

      The TV studios today are not nearly as clueless as the music industry was in 1995, and they are determined not to repeat the same mistakes. They are aware that they have an opportunity to dictate terms and lengthen the survival of their traditional broadcast delivery model if they play things right.

      Enter Hulu -- Hulu is not a for-profit corporation in reality. Hulu is a (perhaps illegal) collusion among NBC, FOX, and ABC (via their respective owners) to provide a "just right" level of service via the Internet -- enough that people are not (as) tempted by BitTorrent/iTunes, but not enough to make for a better experience than that available on a TV.

      That's the reason for all the jacking around with availability schedules and the reason Hulu will never allow itself to be repackaged into a convenient format. The inconvenience is the entire purpose of the service.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by BabyDuckHat ( 1503839 )
        You may be on to something there. Much TOO on, in fact. Please stay where you are and some entertainment industry representatives will arrive shortly to assist you.

        • You may be on to something there. Much TOO on, in fact. Please stay where you are and some entertainment industry representatives will arrive shortly to assist you...

          ...Permanently!

          (wait, that doesn't really make any sense...)

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by milas ( 988484 )

        Hulu is a (perhaps illegal) collusion among NBC, FOX, and ABC (via their respective owners) to provide a "just right" level of service via the Internet -- enough that people are not (as) tempted by BitTorrent/iTunes, but not enough to make for a better experience than that available on a TV.

        While I agree with your point, I don't agree with this comment. Hulu to me is significantly more convenient than watching the shows on TV. There is a significant amount of overhead involved with a DVR (the ones from the cable manufacturers are worse than not having one, PC ones require a constantly running power-hungry computer, etc.)

        Hulu lets me watch the shows on my schedule, and while I think the network's availability restrictions are dated and costing them business, I would much rather watch four 30 se

  • Adobe Flash. It Hurts. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@gm a i l . com> on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:11AM (#28139829) Journal
    From the article:

    As Hulu's popularity has skyrocketed over the past year, users have been clamoring for a way to get it out of the browser and into the living room. Hulu Desktop looks like quite a major effort towards answering this call, so we'll have to see how users respond.

    Hulu Desktop is a free download and requires a Mac with a 2.4GHz Intel Core Duo or comparable processor, 2GB of RAM, and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or later. You'll also need Adobe Flash 9.0.124 and a 2Mbps Internet connection.

    Great, something about to explode in the consumer market passing up on open source and instead locking everyone and all their hardware in to the requirement of Adobe Flash. You want to discuss why you need a core duo to run this!?

    *massages his forehead* I see in the future ... people having to pay again ... for their hardware and ... software and ... codecs and ... media licenses and ... internet connection and ... no one will have enough money to afford it anyway.

    There's free (and I mean actually free) alternatives out there that could make it so that hardware manufacturers and mobile companies don't have to get Adobe Flash on their devices. I'm not sure why Hulu isn't beefing up other open source software, containers and codecs to meet these needs. It would certainly make it easier for them to satisfy the media licenses with ad revenue. Oh well, enjoy your setback.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Andy Dodd ( 701 )

      One three letter acronym: DRM

    • Re:Adobe Flash. It Hurts. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ohio Calvinist ( 895750 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:30AM (#28140041)
      The problem is time and adoption. Flash (as much as I hate it) is available now. Hulu is growing at the rate that needs to run on technology available, not invest in under-developed OSS alternatives that could take a long time to reach a critical mass of adoption. There edge is that they are faster and more available than bit-torrent and a bit easier to use. If you add esoteric plugins to the mix you're going to adjitate the users, and you're going to rely on whatever viewer the client happens to use to process/view the video (VLC, WMP, QT, etc...) which introduces another issue in configurability for the masses. Unfortunately, Flash is the path of least-resistance that works for the vast majority of their customers (even though it runs poorly on non-Windows platforms.)

      They are not a technology company... and operate more like a cable/satellite provider that just so happens to use HTTP and a browser to show the lineup rather than a set-top box/media center on game console (though that may change), and probably will.

      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by whiledo ( 1515553 ) *

        Have to agree with this. To boil it down:

        • The easiest way to get a project approved: "We'll need to code very little new stuff and just wrap software already being used by millions of people up in a nice interface. We'll have it out in three months."
        • The easiest way to get a project rejected: "We're not only going to have to build an interface, but put a decent amount of work into the underlying framework which isn't one you've ever heard of before and has a much smaller userbase. We're expecting a next ye

      • The problem is time and adoption.

        Time? Sure thing. Hulu probably knows their way around Flash and can develop a standalone app in a week. ;)

        Adoption? Fuck no. They're writing a standalone client. They can bundle *anything* *they* *want* with it to get it to work!
        Hell, they could package mplayer and pipe commands to it to decode the video, and redirect the output to their app.

    • If it allows me to do an end-run around paying for cable in the long run it's probably worth it.

    • Also, what the deuce is with the 2.4 GHz Core 2 duo requirement?

      Last I checked, there are lots of still fairly expensive machines (admittedly mostly laptops these days) in the 1.8 -- 2.2 range. I myself just recently purchased a 2.0 machine* that has no trouble with the "high-def" hulu stream (the HD gallery, not the 480 "high def"), and that's with a browser wrapped around everything.

      *which may be the real reason I'm upset....

      It's just stupid video. What does the CPU need to do other than decrypt crap an

      • err.. I should've probably read the rest of GP's comment before posting. It's clear the CPU issue was already addressed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Fishbulb ( 32296 )

      I'm not sure why Hulu isn't beefing up other open source software, containers and codecs to meet these needs.

      Um, did you miss the part about Hulu being a whole-hearted tool for the networks and Hollywood (aka MPAA)?

      It would certainly make it easier for them to satisfy the media licenses with ad revenue.

      It's not Hulu's ad revenue, it the networks'. Why do you think Hulu is only available to US IP addresses? It's because there's no point in advertising products/services only available in the US to vie

  • Now just dump Flash (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alzheimers ( 467217 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:12AM (#28139833)

    Now Hulu just has to dump Flash and pick an HD format that can get some hardware accelerating love, and this will make every owner of a Netbook extremely happy.

    • Now Hulu just has to dump Flash and pick an HD format that can get some hardware accelerating love, and this will make every owner of a Netbook extremely happy.

      ...Except the folks who own Netbooks that don't have any hardware for accelerating video playback... ...Which is pretty much all of them at the moment...

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by compro01 ( 777531 )

        Anything that uses the Intel GMA 500 video has hardware acceleration for video decoding. A few that have this are:

        • Dell Inspiron Mini 10
        • Dell Inspiron Mini 12
        • Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook U2010
        • Sony Vaio VGN-P11Z/R
        • Sony Vaio VGN-P11Z/W
        • Sony Vaio VGN-P19VN/Q
        • Sony Vaio VGN-P530H/R

        And anything built on Nvidia's ion platform, though those are fairly much non-existent so far.

  • Right now, hulu works on any browser that has flash. What does the desktop app give you that the web site doesn't? It seems like this is a step BACKWARD, not forward. I'd be more impressed if it was on XBOX live like Netflix is right now.

    • Re:Why does there need to be a desktop app? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BabyDuckHat ( 1503839 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:24AM (#28139965)
      It's not about what it gives you, it's what it gives them: control. You're right of course, why would anyone use the application?

      • You're right of course, why would anyone use the application?

        The plan seems to have backfired; instead of liquefying our brains, they have instead created a gooey mess in their own noggin. Otherwise no-one would seriously think there was a good reason to have a desktop app with no more ability...

    • Hulu Desktop is wrapped with a media-center-like bow, with a customized "lean-back" UI that can run full screen and even respond to Apple Remotes and Windows Media Center remotes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        > Hulu Desktop is wrapped with a media-center-like bow, with a customized "lean-back" UI that can run full screen and even respond to Apple Remotes and Windows Media Center remotes.

        IOW, it's just Boxee.

        Now there really isn't any good reason that their standard embedded player couldn't use remotes or be more "remote friendly".

    • You can run Hulu on Xbox 360, PS3 or any other dlna client with the PlayOn server for Windows. I run it on my XP box and Hulu works just fine on my 360. It's $40, but well worth it. This is also why this whole Boxee situation is funny...PlayOn is designed to stream content from your computer to your TV and there has not been one peep whatsoever about any difficulties with Hulu. No one has been able to provide an honest answer as to why PlayOn has no problems with the Hulu folks while Boxee does.

      • I just paid for playon yesterday. I have an old PC hooked up to the HDTV, but hulu played full screen videos like crap (no shock right?), even though ITunes, and ABC.com play fine. I got playon because hulu streaming from playon from that PC to XBox360 played full screen fine. It is on sale for the rest of the month at $30, which is why I got it. But if I find that this Hulu app performs full screen on that PC, then I will be a bit bummed. Also, if you go through the playon forums, you will find that t

      • You can run Hulu on Xbox 360, PS3 or any other dlna client with the PlayOn server for Windows.

        Or you can just play Hulu via the PS3 web browser...

        The Hulu site will give you a fake "video not available" message if your browser's client ID string tells them you're on a PS3, though... A little web proxy fixes the problem nicely.

  • Why would I need Boxee or a Hulu app when I have Plex on my Mac..

  • a client that runs on both Windows and Mac.

    Ride 'em in, rawhide.

  • An exclusive club (Score:5, Funny)

    by CopaceticOpus ( 965603 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @11:33AM (#28140081)

    I'm excited about the exclusion of game consoles, assorted media boxes, Linux machines, and all users outside the US. Still, this is a little too open for my tastes. Couldn't they have made it Vista-only?

  • Call me naive, but I wonder why Hulu would not just embrace Boxee and try to work with them. It would save them all the development time and expense, and still allow them to stream their ads. Why should Hulu care how their content is distributed AS LONG AS they get the ad revenue. And they can still develop their own app if they like.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by IANAAC ( 692242 )
      Call me suspicious, but Boxee have always made it clear that they eventually plan to sell a set top box.

      My bet is that Hulu would do the same, although they've made no announcement of that intention. They are, after all, currently the number one site to go to for network shows. It would be nice branding for an "internet TV receiver".

    • I can see your point, but I think the only circumstances that it would happen is not Hulu "work[ing] with" Boxee, but instead buying them out or co-opting them. Hulu wants the ability to exclude people or devices from their service at will. Having that type of power allows them to use proprietary formats or hardware to deliver content. If Boxee exists, Hulu would have a much tougher time creating revenue off of new devices which do exactly the same thing as Boxee.
    • According to the Hulu CEO [nytimes.com], the issue is the cable channels. They get a large chunk of their funding from cable subscriptions, and they feel very threatened by any project that attempts to replace the cable box in your living room.

      Hulu would much rather have shows like Battlestar Galactica and the users it draws than have the handful of hobbyists who currently have a Boxee or XBMC setup. Of course they'd rather have both, but this is similar to the games Apple has to play with RIAA, etc.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by defaria ( 741527 )

        According to the Hulu CEO, the issue is the cable channels. They get a large chunk of their funding from cable subscriptions, and they feel very threatened by any project that attempts to replace the cable box in your living room.

        Poppycock! Indeed their very web site itself "attempts to replace the cable box in your living room".

    • I don't think Hulu does care. It's the people that provide them with content that seem to think because it's a website that it can only be run on a computer and only nerds and people slacking off from work will use it. Once they realized that Boxee was designed for running on a TV, the situation changes. Once your computer is hooked up to your TV, the only reason to watch TV over Hulu is if you can't wait until the next day.

      Now, consider how many ads run on TV vs on Hulu. One 30-second ad 6 times during

  • The biggest problem I have with Hulu is its bandwidth requirements. TFA states that you need a 2Mbit connection. I just don't have that available to me. On a good day I get .5Mbit out of my Sprint wireless card and I have the best connection in my neighborhood. If I could set a buffer high enough, or if I could set it to download overnight, I could watch it later. Does anyone know of a way to do this with Hulu or any other such service for that matter?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      On a good day I get .5Mbit out of my Sprint wireless card and I have the best connection in my neighborhood.

      A lot of people who have commented in other articles might suggest that you get a different neighborhood, one that has at least DSL.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by N!NJA ( 1437175 )
      the "DownloadHelper" plugin for Firefox allows you to download any embedded video as long as the video can be fully buffered to the hard drive. that means it works with YouTube, but it doesnt work with Hulu. depending on the protocol in use, it's possible to use "Orbit Downloader" to save a video stream, but again, it doesnt work with Hulu.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by N!NJA ( 1437175 )
      btw, you dont need so much bandwidth. at least not if you watch on a browser. watch the 296p [slashdot.org] version of the video.
  • My conclusions: They get a star sticker for making a universal binary and not locking out the many mac users that still love and use their PowerPC based Macs. Beyond that though, it is crap. The menus are EXTREMELY slow to respond (even on a 2.4 Ghz core 2 duo with 2 GB ram) and unpredictable. The main interface isn't full screen and doesn't even have a full screen option. The shows seem to revert to clips even when you specifically go though seasons to the latest season, and the whole thing feels clunky.

    • Re:Conclusion: Slower than bathtub gin in Canadia (Score:5, Funny)

      by characterZer0 ( 138196 ) on Friday May 29, 2009 @12:13PM (#28140557)

      Bill Gates doesn't care about Mac people.

      Do you think Bill Gates cares about Windows people?

  • It may not have been laid out before, but this has been the issue all along.
  • This post (Q's 7 & 8) I think explains why Hulu has been forced to block media center apps: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/your-hulu-questions-answered/ [nytimes.com] To be fair, Hulu needs to satisfy the desires of their content-providing overlords, and whether or not the people at Hulu agree with blocking media centers, they need to at least make it appear they are making a good-faith effort to do so (it does seem that every block they've thrown up has been easily worked-around). That said, I su

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by COMON$ ( 806135 )
      Im just a little confused by your post. "I think explains why Hulu has been forced to block media center apps:" But then you say "I suspect the thinking is the full-screen app isn't going to be used by technically sophisticated users who are capable of setting up and running one of the Hulu-supporting media centers"

      Which is it that you are referring to? If Hulu blocks media center apps, but wont allow media centers...or are you thinking eventually Hulu will designate certain apps to be "hulu supported"?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by colin_young ( 902826 )
        If you know how to set up Boxee/XBMC/Plex/whatever, you've probably got your PC hooked up to your TV and probably aren't too excited about running an app outside of your media center (extra clicks and whatnot). You might even consider canceling your cable subscription. If you don't know how to set up one of those apps, you probably don't have your PC hooked up to your TV (at least not permanently), so you're going to (as Hulu apparently imagines it) lean back in your chair at your desk and watch Hulu on you

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by COMON$ ( 806135 )
          Gotcha, much clearer. In my experience with Media Center users they just want to watch their channels easily. They are more than happy to look at ads. Even if Hulu were to allow a plugin to media center to their App, it wouldn't change our desire to cancel cable. Hell most of us would even pay a subscription fee for this ability. There are a lot of third parties that already allow plugins, check netflix for a prime example.

          In short, most of us who hook our PCs up and have this in depth knowledge of me

    • Instead, they are clicking the "full screen" button and are watching the content -- and embedded advertisements -- just like the more tech-savvy users. Either way, you see the same ads, so I fail to understand the media producers' complaint(s).

    • >This post (Q's 7 & 8) I think explains why Hulu has been forced to block media center apps

      They're doing such a bang up job of it that I've been watching Hulu on my Boxee box for the past couple of weeks. :)

  • Early on with few ads and with little delay in streaming and without the aggressive anti-boxee actions I watched Hulu (albeit not on boxee). The occasional ads of 15 to 30 seconds weren't bad. But watching anything now you have to put up with ads quite frequently, at least for the popular shows.

    Forget about movies, they always sucked and probably always will. They relist the same movie web page after web page to make them look more complete, but they aren't, they are just relisting.

    And now with them givi

  • I'm usually the first person on the "closed SW sucks, screw the man" bandwagon, especially when it comes to the TV networks and media distribution / DRM, but I gotta steer clear of the /. party line on this one.

    Hulu is actually pretty awesome - it streams shows on-demand with non-obtrusive ads, ads that are actually much better than the ads on OTA TV these days in that they're a bit (I hate this word, but) edgier and, more importantly, far less repetitive. You can vote on ads you don't like. The content ava

    • It had non intrusive ads. There used to be a few ads per show about 15-30 seconds at the most, but now, just watching a show like Stargate and every few minutes it seems like there's an ad. And they are getting longer.

      And as far as movies go they were pretty much non-existent.

      The issue is that they weren't blocking other ways to view Hulu such as alternative browsers and they weren't limiting the viewing to just Mac and Windows. They limited boxee and of course XBMC, then they claim a client run locally

  • I recently went to watch a movie on Hulu that was there before, isn't now. I searched Hulu for it, and the search Window told me that it was now available on crackle.com - and that welcomed me to the Sony Entertainment Group. Crackle doesn't buffer as Hulu does (in fact, if you pause long enough hoping to build a buffer - you'll just have to reload the page), but it does offer some form of hi-def - and their FAQ is worthless. While the hi-def was good, I couldn't get past a few minutes without hangs.

    Now

  • I watch DVDs and video files fullscreen on my 20" old/1996 CRT TV (S-video). Does this program let you do the same? I hate having to do extended desktop and make my Web browser show video fullscreen on the TV. I also prefre to use clone display setup and still use my PC while TV is showing the video.

    BTW, this is in an updated Windows XP Pro. SP3 with an ATI Radeon 4870 video card.

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