Hulu Testing Client App; Boxee Dispute Explained

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."

Comments

Re:Adobe Flash. It Hurts.

[whiledo]

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 year Q3 release."

Re:I don't think ads were the sticky issue with Bo

[defaria]

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).

What the hell are you talking about? Hulu exists to make money - they are not a non-profit venture. If you believe they are then show evidence of that. Ads make Hulu money. They are not doing this for free.

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.

What are you saying or trying to imply here? Online music sharing is totally different than TV shows. When you get an MP3 file from some online music sharing site it's not like in the 3rd verse you hear "and now a word from our sponser...". With TV you do. The broadcast model for at least 70 years now have been advertiser supported. Hulu videos have ads in them. They are advertising supported. This is totally different than music. What you say above makes no sense.

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.

Again, what are you saying here. Hulu is a for profit corporation. That is their legal structure and their aim - period. Stop spreading lies. And there's nothing illegal with the networks getting together - last I checked this was still a free country although I suspect you secretly wish it wasn't.

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.

You have failed to show that and it doesn't even make any sense. Hulu makes money on ads. It really doesn't matter what vehicle you use to view the ads. Hulu's concern is that open source pirates might be able to break the encryption and serve up content without ads thus no money for Hulu. There's no need to invent conspiracy theories...

Re:Let me RTFA that for you

[whiledo]

I don't know about on the Mac, but I do not believe the most browser windows capture remote keypresses like Play/Pause media keys without using something like LM Remote Keymap to reprogram your remote to use regular keypresses rather than the windows. IE might, considering it's an MS product. But being a bit of a flash programmer, I don't recall anything that would let me see any of those mediacenter buttons from within a flash app, either. So you'd have to write a translation layer, and then you'd be stuck with it only working in IE.

IOW, it's just Boxee

True, but only in that my SageTV is just Boxee, and someone else's Vista MediaCenter is just Boxee.

Re:Let me RTFA that for you

[whiledo]

SageTV doesn't know jack about Hulu. I just have utorrent and some RSS feeds. I'm just saying that once you abstract it, they're basically all the same.

But if you're talking about the fine details, one big difference that negates the "IOW, it's just boxee" statement is that the Hulu desktop player won't break every time Hulu decides to screw over 3rd party players.