Hulu Launches With Few YouTube Killing Qualities

Hulu.com, the online video venture from NBC Universal and News Corp., has launched a private beta program. Early reports suggest it's far from being a YouTube killer. "Although Hulu's parent companies have done a lot of things right with the service, the scheduling leaves something to be desired. For the time being, the site will only feature five weeks worth of content for any given show. From there, it's assumed that older content will get the boot in favor of newer episodes and movies. This isn't necessarily a deal breaker for us, but for a lot of viewers this will prevent the service from becoming with online video Shangri-La they'd imagined. Furthermore, with the lack of user-generated content, it falls short of the end-all be-all site for online video. Viewers are still going to go to YouTube and still click their ads -- but in terms of piracy a minor rebellion may have been quelled."

Comments

A better Youtube killer

[ardor]

is this: http://stage6.divx.com/

Re:Actually, it's a different question

[KingSkippus]

Nope, and I doubt it will anytime soon. When I use my computer, I tend to want to sit close to the screen to make out detail. When I watch television, I tend to sit six to ten feet away and don't care so much if I can make out itty bitty fonts.

I'm just not willing to switch back and forth right now. I wouldn't mind having a cheap dedicated computer for the purpose of serving as a media center, something with a simple interface (I don't want a keyboard interface to watching television). You know... like an AppleTV. ;-)

I still think that ultimately, it will be the successful player (no pun intended) in the market. It's pretty easy to use, it works really well, it's already got some media companies behind it (although it admittedly needs several more to really take off), and best of all, it doesn't ask people to watch television and movies on their computer screen. I honestly thinkg that someday, after Hulu is recognized for the abject failure that it will be, the idiots at NBC that decided to bail in it will eventually be fired for incompetence and allowing its competitors get a huge lead on them in the market of digital media distribution.

Beta isn't very private

[smart2000]

On the corporate blog there is a sample video. The URL to watch any video is of the form:
http://www.hulu.com/embed/1734 In a stunning lack of foresight the number is the primary key of the record in the database. You can enter anything less than 1850 and view the shows. Since they give permission to embed on your own web pages, I've embedded a sample of ten random shows

Re:click their ads?

[Arancaytar]

Five years is pretty impressive considering that the name Firefox didn't exist until three years ago. :P

Re:Actually, it's a different question

[elrous0]

I've got my TV setup like this and it's not that easy to set up (harder than most people think). First of all, if you have a SD TV with s-video or component inputs, you can't just hook it directly up to your video card unless you want really annoying ground loop artifacts (banding in the video and buzzing in the audio which get worse over time). You're going to need ground loop isolators, which will run you over $100 for both audio and video.

You're also going to need long cables if your computer is any distance from your TV. This is a real problem for both analog and digital signals, as they degrade over long distances (jut TRY finding a 20' VGA cable sometime). This is going to mean obscure relays and God knows what else to solve. Big pain in the ass.

You're also going to need a remote or wireless mouse to control the computer. You can get around the keyboard by using a on-screen keyboard widget for konfabulator, but it's not ideal.

In other words, a big hassle. The only reason I do this is because it's the only way to be sure you can play ALL video formats (including web video). Most extenders (like AppleTV, Xbox 360, etc.) are VERY picky about the video they play, with very limited codecs.