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Hulu Testing Client App; Boxee Dispute Explained

Posted by kdawson on 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."

9 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. No love for the Penguin? by lordofthechia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    --
    Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
    1. Re:No love for the Penguin? by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My previous approach was basically the same as MythVodka except more manual. Both depended on rtmpdump IIRC.

      rtmpdump came with a get_hulu Perl script that worked until they moved to RTMPE.

      If I rtmpdumped a stream and played it on my old machine (Athlon XP 2800+), it would play fine. Hulu would be choppy as hell.

      The same machine can also playback rtmpdumped 720p streams from CBS smoothly, while standard def 480p streams from CBS effectively slideshow when using Flash Player.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    2. Re:No love for the Penguin? by phrend · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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 know - I'm just an outsider guessing here. :)

      --
      - phrend
    3. Re:No love for the Penguin? by Sparks23 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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 dealing with full episodes, but cast interviews, trailers or video diaries from on the set? Really, that seems excessive.)

      The brand new SkyOne streaming media extravaganza for Xbox 360 will be only in the UK, too, though at least that's not an embedded thing you're likely to run across in a random web article.

      There's plenty of annoying region lockouts going on there, not just in America. I suspect this comes down to licensing ('why should we license your show for our territory when people are already watching it online?'), advertising ('why should I buy advertising on this show when people watching it could be anywhere in the world? I want to target my ad buys to people who can actually use my service/product.') and other funding (BBC productions being funded by UK license fees, for instance).

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      --Rachel
  2. I don't think ads were the sticky issue with Boxee by IANAAC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  3. Adobe Flash. It Hurts. by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  4. Re:Why not just work with Boxee by Alzheimers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or, what the rest of us call a "Cable Box"

  5. Re:Now just dump Flash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    True, but then you bring on the wrath of Linux users since the GMA500 chipset doesn't play well with Linux.

  6. Adobe SW = Wasted CPU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone with Solaris 10 can run dtrace on any adobe programs and see hundreds of thousands (100.000+) of wasted system calls constantly being made.

    I did this with Acrobat Reader a few years ago and saw hundreds of get_current_time() calls every second. This is a read-only application, so why does it care what time it is?

    Want to know more about DTrace? http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/dtrace/