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ABC/Disney Considering Hulu

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the step-in-the-right-direction dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Walt Disney Co and Hulu.com have restarted talks over offering shows from Disney's ABC television network on the online video distributor owned by NBC Universal and News Corp, paidContent.org reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources." The real question to me is when will they stop screwing around with Boxee users?

12 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. The problem... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The problem with an online model is that it may or may not be possible to block the ads. When watching television, you see what you see, unless you flip the channel. Online, though, maybe or maybe not, with some streaming sites, blocking certain sites will potentially block the ads.

    But, that's what they get when they have separate files from the show, as opposed to merging it into one long video file.

    1. Re:The problem... by flitty · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You seem to be referring to ABC's horrific website streaming model, which often brings up a separate website to show you the ad, and then makes you click after a determined amount of time to start the show again. Not only that, it also resizes your fullscreen and the volume level is never consistant. Sounds like ABC needs to join up with Hulu to avoid the warnings you are giving them. I don't know of a way to block Hulu's ads, and frankly, I don't care to, considering most of the ads are under 30 seconds, and I WANT internet tv to succeed.

      Given that 90% of the people I know still use IE, or Firefox without Adblock, I don't think that ad blocking in streaming videos is much of a concern yet.

      --
      Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
    2. Re:The problem... by QuantumRiff · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That is true, however, large infrastructure would have to be put into place in the other areas of the world also. Hulu uses some very large content distribution networks to cut down on traffic costs.

      But on the whole, your right. There is no reason they can't show an Opel Commercial to an EU viewer, a Ford commercial to a US one, and show a TATA ad to a viewer in India.

      --

      What are we going to do tonight Brain?
    3. Re:The problem... by Serious+Callers+Only · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I WANT internet tv to succeed.

      I don't, I'd rather the internet superseded TV; these webTV websites like Hulu leave the same old content syndicates in charge of when you watch, what you watch, and what you watch with it (no Boxee or mobile devices for you! No content if you're not from country X). Note Hulu is owned and directed by media conglomerates, it's not some plucky independent.

      Worse, it gives them leverage over device manufacturers to later on demand things like no ad-skipping, no recording, etc etc. in return for licensing access to their webTV channel. The only advance of this system over TV is it isn't scheduled. If this is the future of internet TV, count me out, I'll go back to youtube and reading.

      I'd rather a simple purchase/rent model myself (as in Amazon or iTunes), and the minimum of middlemen between the content producer and the purchaser. After the purchase I do whatever I want with the item I have purchased, and don't have to be connected constantly to watch it, or ask permission to transfer it to a device (in this respect iTunes fails, they should lose the DRM).

      The concepts of ad-supported viewing, control over viewing, no recording/skipping, and even channels themselves really deserve to die along with broadcast TV.

    4. Re:The problem... by flitty · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Note Hulu is owned and directed by media conglomerates, it's not some plucky independent.

      Plucky Independants in media, especially films and TV, exist on the backs of the giant conglomerates. Look at Steam, just as an example. If you tried steam without mainstream games, and only put up games like The Path, or i-Fluid or World of Goo, Steam would have died a long time ago. The more mainstream content shoulders the cost, the more networks are able and willing to support smaller, more daring shows. I agree that letting media consolidation run rampant is never good, but because Hulu exists, i'd expect a smaller, independant version to pop up as a sister site, because frankly, YouTube doesn't cut it for content distribution.

      I'd rather a simple purchase/rent model myself

      And you still can, but i'll be damned if i ever pay $1.99 for 22 minutes of The Daily Show. However, we're talking about Free content here. For that, I'd rather the ability to watch when I want, where I want, with fewer commercials and no cable TV bill, the more networks sign on for this, the better.

      --
      Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
  2. What they really need to do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Is have a company/service like Hulu partner with any one (or more) of the current carriers to provide a monthly subscription to all the Hulu content, free of ads.

    The future is streaming, fat-trimmed, on-demand and à la carte. There is no room for the current bloated model of "everything and the kitchen sink" cable/satellite tv.

    Who suffers: local access, religious channels and basically everything that barely got watched anyway. But they can move to a cheaper online broadcast for their current audiences anyway, or be part of the à la carte.

    Who benefits: The consumer and ground-floor investors in this paradigm shift.

  3. Boxee by pdabbadabba · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't think it's any mystery why Hulu is "screwing around with" Boxee users: Hulu's content providers don't want Hulu to be viewable on a TV and, thus (in their sad confused minds) compete with their television programming. Yes, it's stupid, but I don't see how this is Hulu's fault. They're getting jerked around by the content providers just like the rest of us.

    --
    caritj.org
    1. Re:Boxee by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The PlayOn media server lets me stream Hulu and other content providers to my TV via upnp/DLNA. It's a $40 product (ie commercial product) and as far as I know, Hulu has not raised a stink about them.

      --
      Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
  4. This would be great if it happened. by IANAAC · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I have a box hooked up to my TV and have recently gotten rid of my cable. Using Ubuntu/Boxee, except for the NBC shows I want to watch (because of the whole Hulu-Boxee thing). For those shows, I just created a prism app that goes directly to Hulu, at least for now, until they get everything sorted out.

    The problem has always been the ABC shows I like, such as Lost. They won't work under Linux, so I have a VirtualBox image that I use for those shows. It's a crappy workaround. Adding ABC to Hulu would allow me to completely get rid of that VirtualBox image.

    Regardless of the current situation between Hulu and Boxee, Hulu has allowed me to get rid of my $100-plus a month cable bill, so adding any major network is a good thing.

  5. Hulu would be the easier solution by Coopjust · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hulu is starting to get a pretty good mass now. Hulu is my preferred player (ease of use, intrusiveness of ads, etc.). NBCs is better in some ways (higher resolution) but worse in others (less able to handle connection bumps). CBS' player is decent, and ABC's player is probably the least user friendly of the bunch.

    Hulu is the future; content providers who don't offer online streaming will be left behind. It's really a win-win. Consumers get an easy and free option to catch up with their shows if they miss them. The content provider gets to manage the time it's up and gets ad revenue, and likely can use web metrics software to get a better idea of viewership/demographics (NetRatings, Quantcast, Google Analytics, etc.) since very few households influence the Nielsen Ratings.

  6. Choppy playback by N!NJA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the real question to me is what the heck has happened to Hulu's service for the last month? i used to have great playback even on my Celeron 800Mhz Tablet, but now all i get is dropped frames -- even on my Athlon XP 3000+!

    last year i watched all the episodes of "Arrested Development" and was surprised by both the quality of the series (it was new to me) and the quality of the streaming. it only took me the first 60sec of AD's episode 1 to turn me into a big Hulu fan! i even got into the habit of watching movies there afterwards.

    the chopped playback doesnt seem to be a bandwidth issue because the audio and video never stop and they dont get out of synch either. when you think Flash playback cant become any heavier, Adobe and Hulu show you otherwise. it makes me wonder if the use of Silverlight could make this less worse?

  7. A Hidden Reason for Hulu's Success by fm6 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I used to watch a lot of TV via the network web sites. It was great: didn't have to remember to set a recorder, didn't have to remember to go to the TV at a particular time, got shows that aren't available in my area without cable or a rooftop antenna (refuse to pay for one, landlord doesn't provide the other). Plus ABC shows were in a fancy widescreen mode that I can't get on my klunky old analog TV.

    Then all the networks started switching to an evil software stack from Move Networks. Don't know the motivation (DRM? Outsourcing streaming infrastructure?) but it effectively cut me off from the sites that use it. The Move player requires more CPU bandwidth than my wimpy little tablet can handle. (So no more watching "Lost" in bed.) And even if I switch to my more powerful desktop machine, I get endless network. These might go away if I upgraded my DSL, but that's just not worth it.

    Fortunately, a lot of the shows that I watch are also available on Hulu. And they still use a simple flash-based player. The rest I watch the old-fashioned way or do without.

    Gotta wonder how much business Hulu has picked up this way.