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Hulu May Begin Charging For Content Next Year
DJLuc1d tips news that Chase Carey, president and COO of News Corp., has said that Hulu may begin charging for its streamed video content as early as next year. He said at a recent conference that the free-to-air model is not sustainable in the long-term. The Atlantic takes a look at several business models Hulu could employ and wonders how their current advertising system would be involved.
new headline: Hulu may begin loosing viewers next year.
Yarrr, we missed ye while ye watched thar streamin videos...
Join me down at thepirateba-oh wait..
aw..
extending the unstoppable commercials to 60 seconds, gives me more time to run and get a drink/food or go take a quick leak. But I won't be paying for any content that I currently get from Hulu for "free".
There went 90% of their users.
And their user base drops to 3 men and a dead dog.
If they got off their asses and let hulu work on your tv.. the fact its limited to computer or media center hacks keeps people from enjoying it enough to replace OTA or cable strongholds.
yes.. i know it can be done, but they don't make it easy.
So Chase Cary has come to the same conclusion all the failed dot com companies figured out 10 years ago... Not that surprising, all he had to do was look back @ companies like Netzero, FreePC, WinFire, etc...
Of course, this could just be a cop-out...
According to this media journalist (http://gizmodo.com/5388745/how-a-paid-hulu-would-work):
"Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.'s Fox, GE's NBC Universal and Disney's ABC, doesn't plan on charging people to watch the stuff it's currently airing on the site-a mix of first-run shows from broadcast TV, a limited number of cable TV shows and a smattering of movies. But Hulu is trying to figure out how to create some kind of premium offering where you'll pay for stuff that isn't on the site right now."
If true, I think that is completely OK. A mix of free ad-supported content with premium high-quality content people are willing to pay for. Not sure how that would work currently, but HBO has proven people are happy to pay for *quality* programming.
And I wouldnt just subscribe to netflix because? I dont even use the free hulu.
Couldn't give less of a rat's ass. New 1-terabyte Tivo & Fios here.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I wouldn't mind paying for the two to three shows per week I watch on hulu.com, but then if I have to pay I don't want to sit through ads. Wonder how they'll work that out?
Caveat Utilitor
if it is composed as bits, and it is consumed as bits (books, music, movies/ tv), consumers will pay nothing or very little for it
this is the future, deal with it
and no dear content panic brigade: plenty of books, music, movies/ tv will still be made. high quality and at high cost. as if free internet content is a threat to content creation: it isn't, its free adertising for the creators. music is consumed at concerts, movies in cinemas, and books in beds/ trains. and this makes cash as well as a whole huge range on ancillary streams: endorsements, toylines, speeches, movie script treatments, spokesperson, etc...
what kind anarchist communist thinking is this?
gee, i dunno. its called the business model that saw the rise of radio, and sustained television for free over the airways for decades: ADVERTISING. you give your content away FOR FREE, and your content is supported by ANCILLARY STREAMS OF REVENUE. you don't put moronic tollbooths that are broken anyways on top of access to your content. no one is going to pay it, you'll just make a lot less money than if you provided free access and depended on ancillary streams
do you think the business model of radio and television in the 1950s is some antiamuricun socialism? no? then why are your panties in a twist over free digital content?
but go ahead hulu, reduce your viewership by a thousandth or a millionth. you're geniuses, really, we can bring the business model of vinyl and cassette tapes to the internet. yeah, go for it
fucking morons
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...just wasn't profitable enough.
That's a shame, because my fiancée and I have really enjoyed Hulu, as it's allowed us to watch our favorite shows (those that Hulu carries, anyway) on our own schedules, and with short commercial breaks, and no banner ads across the lower quarter or third of the screen. It's proven to be kind of an ideal version of television. (We've never had on-demand or DVR, just expanded basic cable, so take that with as many grains of salt as you wish.)
Speaking for myself, the continual, intrusive advertising that plagues television today has done much to drive me away from it, but Hulu has succeeded in bringing me back. I really don't mind that much when the ads are at most a minute long (sometimes as short as 10-15 seconds), and only one at a time.
Meanwhile, we're taking a wait-and-see approach to what happens next. There's no telling what Hulu will charge, but if it's reasonable (define that how you will) and serves to, say, buy CBS's participation, it could still be a worthy thing.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
OTA tv has been supported by ads for the last 50 years, why is it that media companys suddenly think this model doesn't work? people skipping ads isn't any worse then them ignoring them, hell i've been muting the fucking things for years. maybe try targeting their ads and making them less annoying (and not turning up the volume) and people might feel the need to skip them.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I am not satisfied that the Hulu streaming service is of acceptable quality to sustain a "pay-for-view" model. I only use their service if I absolutely have to. I am already a paid subscriber to three other online streaming services. All of these services give their users a better quality experience. And I'm speaking about things like rock solid streaming, 480p and 720p steams, better "full screen" response, and easier navigation around their sites. Until Hulu gets their act together my money will stay in my pocket.
hulu.com
This domain is for sale! Click here to register!
Too late to be known as Bush the First, he's sure to be known as Bush the Worst.
I agree with you 100%. It won't work. Millions of people already pay for content AND watch ads every day. Cable TV. People are dumb. They'll continue to pay to watch ads.
I don't respond to AC's.
The heavily compressed low res streams are okay for free/limited commercial but if they expect to charge for similar quality content even if it's current movies uncut I think I'll pass. Now if they offer things I can't get anywhere else especially older shows and movies that aren't available then I'd consider it for a reasonable cost. Don't offer what everyone else is just lower quality think outside the box and offer what isn't available. Fans love rare and hard to find but offering yet another way to get movies only a paid service then you are selling apples in an apple orchard. If they can provide premium cable shows rebroadcast for a reasonable rate uncut they might have something. The better ones are available in box sets but there are older ones that aren't available. Everyone is fighting for the same mainstream market so it's over served already. Better to break new ground.
We shouldn't be patronizing people like these who won't let their signal out of the country anyway. Let's use the internet to tear down the borders, not reenforce them.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
We canceled our cable a couple years ago, and have lived quiet happily with HULU, a $9 Netflix subscription, and a $50 Craigslist post lease PC attached to our HDTV.
Hulu has always been very generous (IMO) with the number of ads in their content. I always assumed at some point they would take that up to the same level as network TV. Keep in mind networks have existed happily for many years broadcasting free with only the ad revenue.
If and when HULU goes pay (depending on content and terms) our household will most likely simply stop watching HULU.
if it is composed as bits, and it is consumed as bits (books, music, movies/ tv), consumers will pay nothing or very little for it
If that were true, iTunes would be an utter failure. But it's booming, selling a lot of music but also a lot of video content.
If you look the prices are actually pretty high ($1.99 for SD, $2.99 for HD television shows). But people buy it - because of convenience and quality.
I've tried Hulu a few times but honestly I can't even tolerate the minimal advertising they have, and either tape shows off the air or buy some from iTunes for stations I cannot get. The only time I turn to the universal "free" option is when a publisher is so dense as to not offer something on iTunes.
Yes there will always be people who choose the free option, but if you give consumers a chance to pay for convenience a lot will.
That said I don't think paid Hulu will do well at all. It's pretty damn inconvenient to watch streaming video already (with or without commercials), since you can't (without technical know-how) shift it to portable devices at all, and if you want to re-watch something it may just be gone. At least when they yank content from iTunes you as a consumer can keep on using what you bought, which is probably as close to replication of physical media rules as we are likely to get.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the free-to-air model is not sustainable in the long-term.
... and the pay-to-view model is not sustainable period.
The only model that has a narrow chance is if they charge something like 5 dollars per year, but also get rid of their randomly disappearing and reappearing content. No one will complain while its free, but when I start watching a series from season 1, I expect season 5 to still be there when I get there. I'm just sayin'.
Sorry Hulu, but calling it the "free-to-air" model is dubious at best. Any time we are receiving advertising over websites/TV/radio/Hulu, we are a product being delivered to advertisers.
Hulu, you run plenty of ads. The idea that you are not making any money, or that your service is free in any sense beyond the most narrow interpretation, is absurd.
'Holy shit, we're fucking screwed' say Hulu execs
Dateline Saturday October 24, @12:02AM
Chase Carey, the soon to be replaced president and COO of News Corp, has said that Hulu is a fucking disaster of epic proportions. He said at a recent conference that they aren't making any fucking money, and their numbers were all fucked up in the first place, thanks to their business model being based on the syphillitic ramblings of an LSD tripper.
The Atlantic pretends to be all sensitive and shit, acting like there is any possible way Hulu can drag it's ass out of the fire before it's burnt to a flaky blackened crisp. It also wonders what the fuck they spent all that money implementing an advertising subsystem for if it wasn't going to bring in any fucking income, for chrissakes they show you a commercial every 5 goddamn minutes on the thing, you'd think somebody would want to pay for that shit.
Calls from shareholders to reduce executive bonuses were responded to by Carey as 'fucking communist', and followed by a quick, short, sharp shock to the back of the head.
Not true, almost all around
First of all, I don't remember ever "no ads" being the selling point of cable. When I first saw cable back around 1979, it was because the transmission towers were so far away from our rural neighborhood in a valley that we couldn't get a signal with an antenna. Literally nothing. "Cable" to us meant that we got to pay for what everyone else was watching: broadcast television.
Second of all, when they did start adding a few paltry non-broadcast stations to cable television, I remember ads from the outset. Oh, sure, you had the "premium" stations like HBO that had no ads, but guess what--they were really expensive, and we didn't get those channels, and we watched ads. Fewer than today, granted, but that was true even of broadcast television and is a trend across the board.
Third of all, I don't see us ever going back to the way things were, with big content providers having an absolute lock on when, where, and how you watch big content. Too many genies are out of too many bottles for that to happen. The providers now have two excruciatingly difficult competitors to face: media pirates and entertainment alternatives.
Yes, as much as we like to pretend that media pirates don't have that big an impact on the industry, they really, really do. Fortunately, in many ways, it's positive. I mean, think about it, do you really think that a service like Hulu would exist today if big media didn't have to contend with people downloading their stuff for free? Their value added is no longer the fact that they have complete control over the pipeline. It's all about ease of use and legitimacy. If they stop providing that value added service, then people will still simply stop using their service.
Added to this pressure is the fact that the times they are a-changin'. Back when I was little, we didn't have the Internet. We really didn't have many good video games. (I grew up in the Atari 2600 age.) The television was THE home entertainment medium. At night, it was either watch television or sit around talking to your parents. (Fun.)
But now with all of our instant communication technology, the Internet as our kids' playground, and gaming systems that are more hi-tech than the most expensive supercomputers I grew up on, television has a fraction of the relevance that it once did. Look around, man. Between cell phones, the Internet, their World of Warcraft accounts, and their Xboxes, a lot of kids don't even watch television!
Do you really think that people will be paying for access to shows riddled with ads on top of ads? I don't. I think that they'll just find something more interesting to do, some alternative that we didn't grow up with, thus the reason we were so willing to put up with that crap. Big media will either adjust, with services like Hulu, or die. And they know that, so please, finger off the panic button.
Cable and Sat have gotten out of control, I don't watch enough tv to necessitate 1000+ channels while paying $50-$75/mo for it.
I canceled my cable a few months ago and have been souly utilizing Netflix for my viewing needs via my xbox360. If hulu starts offering direct streaming services and in HD, via xbox, ps3 and/or web for all of its television content like netflix does for movies I would be willing to pay $5-$10-$15/mo for it and wouldn't mind some ad support. Unchanged though, I wouldn't consider paying for it.
I'd pay for Hulu if it was a very reasonable price with a very good selection of stuff, with no or very few advertisements. If it has a good selection there's STILL no reason to buy cable when you can watch what and when you want to watch. In my opinion, Cable Television as we know it isn't going to be sustainable in the long term, either, because people are increasingly DVRing and downloading and stuff nowadays anyway and the old advertisement scheme just isn't as viable as it once was. Cable emerged and appeared the way it did because the internet was not really fully realized the way it is now and certainly not with today's bandwidth. The old cable network model is slowly on the way out. Hulu at cost, a decent cost, will be a bargain over the old cable networks still because I can watch any (available) episode of, say, Babylon 5 when I want, where I want, without having to wait for network showings.
Sometimes I watch Hulu because it's convenient, if they were charging I'd drop them like a hot rock. Tivo is your friend.
Thinking they're going to come out with a charge model isn't as funny as Rupert Murdoch's threats to monetize his web properties, but it's vastly overestimating their importance in the content market.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I almost want them to sell show-based subscriptions. Or allow me to donate money to the show balance. I am worried that the fact that I religiously watch a few particular shows is not counted in the rating of the show and that might lead it to die. Perhaps if people could pay for subscriptions, we could have saved Firefly before it got canceled!
Of course I would probably want a view without ads if I am going to pay money for a subscription...
Now I have to continue not visiting Hulu! There's nothing on there you can't find ad-free elsewhere. If this were about YouTube, it might be newsworthy, but I'm not exactly shocked that a site ran by the likes of NBC/General Electric, ABC/Disney, and Murdoch are going to attempt to gouge as much money as they can from people.
Someone should probably let broadcasters know about this.
Can Hulu desktop do fullscreen video overlays? Basically, can I still do stuff on my computers and watch videos on my TV fullscreen?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Hulu will now get payed from both advertisers and you.
when you read that Chevy Chase is COO of Fox News!
"Ones and zeros were everywhere. I even think I saw a two!" - Bender
Broadcast networks have existed for more than fifty years on a model that had massive overhead but was free to any user within range of the signal. Now, there is a way they can provide their same product via the internet with massively lower overhead, but they can't figure out how to make money like they used to? Or even make money at all? Did these guys all go to the school with an MBA program that taught them to find a stable company that looks like it would run on autopilot, and just cash the checks as long as the good times last?
Perhaps with the change of model it means that people outside the USA could use Hulu? If the subscription is cheap enough they could make a lot of money from non-US viewers. I might be totally mis-understanding the whole reason we cannot legally watch Hulu though.
Fuck. Now back to pirating my TV shows.
Visit my Forums?
So... it's not making money? Wait, it is. Oh, its not making "enough" money! Damn you capitalism and your tendency to drive down the cost of things for consumers over time. What we need here is an entirely new model of economics. One where a group of elite few control everything and have all the money and power, and the rest are ordered around on penalty of imprisonment and death. If only there was a word for how such a thing would work.
The problem is figuring out what people will put up with. Some people will be willing to put up with more adds or subscription fees. Some won't
Hulu, as it stands now, is reasonable (though their selection is way too small). If they ever ask for a credit card (paypal, etc), they will instantly lose a huge percentage of their clients, including me. If they increase the number or length of commercials by much, they will drive many back to their DVR and VCR (or online downloads).
They have an appealing concept working for them right now. They need to decide exactly why it is that they aren't making their original projections. I suspect they just don't have much that people want to watch. Perhaps the general public simply hasn't heard about them (an advertizing problem). Whatever the issue, you only resort to driving away your viewers when you're desperate. If they "over-correct", they will crash and burn.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
What I and my family watch on Hulu is not available on cable or broadcast. We watch some really old cartoons with my kids like "Speed Racer","He-Man", and "She-Ra". Its a chance for me and my wife to share with our kids some of the things that we used to enjoy when we were growning up. I don't have a problem paying (a reasonable price) for content that is not available elsewhere. If my cable company had that kind of video libarary available on demand, I would pay them instead, but they don't. If you have an Xbox360 or media extender (with the PlayOn and vmcPlayIt plug-ins), you can watch Hulu (and netflix instant view) on your TV, not just the computer. Its better than cable, because its on demand and has a fairly large library. I want them to be profitable, because it will a) keep them around for me to enjoy b) encourge them to expand their library further. I'll gladly pay for that.
I wonder if the NBC, ABC, CBS, SyFy, WB, etc. websites are going to jump to a subscription model too. That's where Hulu gets the vast majority of its TV content, including its classic shows. Hulu even adds and removes their content on the same schedules. So far as I can tell, the only real service Hulu provides seems to be the convenience of having all of that in one place. I can put up with the ads for that convenience, but I don't think I'd care to pay for it, especially if they keep the ads.
Also, considering all the many articles I've read over the past year proclaiming the epic scale of Hulu's viewership, and how an episode of The Simpsons is now worth considerably more advertising dollars on Hulu than it is on Fox, I have a hard time seeing how advertiser-supported content (AKA the tried and tested model of the last sixty years) is suddenly no longer viable. Considering the scale of their audience, and the fact that they're not too far from the only game in town for centralization of that type of content, Hulu should be able to push its ad revenues up to a "sustainable rate" pretty easily without dinging its viewers. But then, I guess this is News Corp. we're talking about...
Publish the shows to Hulu the shows the same day they air on network TV. Remove the ads. Basically, stop doing everything that currently neuters Hulu.
Sure, I'd pay for it. Hell, I'm paying $70 a month to watch TV now. Hulu has some of my favorite programing available, on demand. I'd be willing to pay for it.
Seriously, with the kind of traffic Hulu gets and the kind of top shelf advertisers they pull... They're not making money? Hardly. The PROBLEM is that they're not making ENOUGH money. They *own* most of the content they put up there, so we can't believe that they are paying ALL of that that in royalties.
Just another case of corporate greed. Nothing to see here. Move along now.
nuff said
Just download the Hulu Desktop app
Dude, you just changed my life.
I remember TV stars saying that Hulu was a system to turn human brains to mush to make them easier to consume. Charging for it is going to hinder that plan, it makes no sense! ...wait a moment, did Hollywood lie to me?!?
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
Torrents my dear friend, torrents.
That is the free option...
I fully understand people saying that it's wrong to download music or movies - but downloading a tv show is no different than your friend recording it on VHS and then giving the tape to you.
I agree but I still like to pay the producers of a show I really like, when I can - I see nothing wrong with torrents for the reason you mention, but I also like to reward a good effort since I am in a position to do so.
That's why I'm so annoyed with people that give you no channel whatsoever to give them money, the only option for later watching is crappy web streaming.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Everyone I know who uses Hulu does so because we don't have TVs but still want to watch the few good shows on Television for free like everyone else can. The moment they start charging, there's going to be a almost complete drop-off in Hulu viewership and a huge spike in bittorrent traffic. Who gets the ad dollars then? Honestly? What little there is will go to the bittorrent sites.
Kinda gives me the warm-fuzzies, to be honest. I mean you always have those crazy-ass people going "HURRRRR PIRACY IS TERRORISM" but now I can argue that Hulu, by driving people away from watching their ad-supported free media, and producing web ad revenue for bittorrent sites, are 'supporting terrorism'. ZING!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
time to start watching tv...
This is typical. Get them hooked for free. Slowly start charging when demand goes up.
NT
greatstufftv, youtube, major broadcast companies already stream, ...
Really, there's a lot of people proclaiming they won't pay for it, that this will doom Hulu, and that it's going to cause more piracy.
Yeah, now try looking at it from Hulu's side of things. Can they pay their bills with the revenue they're getting from ads? Do you think the advertisers will throw more money at them if they're not delivering paying customers?
Cuz guess what? The Hulu people have to eat too. If they don't, bam, they're dead.
Of course, I think the Slashdot crowd is about as representative of the real market as a goldfish cracker is of the real fish, but who knows...maybe they are doomed.
Oh well.
Do the above and consider me a customer.
It seems so strange to me. People will pay $150 a month for cable television, but the same people would be outraged to pay even the modest fee to get the same content over the internet.
Maybe all TV should be like hulu. You could watch what you want, when you want. Not pay for 200 channels of crap that you don't want. Not burn up all that bandwidth for those channels you don't want. Just pay for internet, and a small content fee.
pricing is reduced by the number and duration of the confirmed number of advertisements you watch per month*.
What could be more fair?
Rupert Murdoch/hc
News Corp**
* provided you have a sufficiently attractive consumer profile
** aka News Corporation for You
If only they could sell adds at critical points of shows, you know, when they have your undivided attention.
I'm more than happy to pay a fair price for Hulu. Call me crazy, but I don't expect everything for free.
The problem is likely to be a minor difference of opinion as to what constitutes "fair".
I'd probably be willing to pay 25 to 50 cents per show, per hour, provided that I watched more than five or ten minutes of it. Pay as you go. No ads.
Hulu will probably try to charge $25 to $50 per month, with ads, trying to emulate the cable industry. Which is why I don't have cable. Since I watch only four or five hours per month, this works out to "outrageously expensive" for me.
Oh well.
The problem that I see is this: both hulu and traditional cable / satellite have a different, not so fun problem. You're forced to choose between them.
Cable TV / Satellite plus a DVR lets you record anything, and then skip the commercials. The problem is that if you forget to record something, or are recommended to something after the fact, you really can't got get it (the on-demand offerings aren't sufficient, generally, IMHO).
Hulu lets you watch pretty much anything current (within the selection catalog, I realize), but you have to watch short ads while watching it.
In other words, you choose between a limited set of things that you remembered to record (w/o commercial interruption via DVR skipping), or you deal with hulu and short, annoying, highly repetitive interruptions (still better than TV without a DVR, though).
The real question is, how much would you pay for hulu, and would you be able to skip commercials completely for an added, premium price? I'll say this, there's no way I'd give them a dime if I had to spend ANYTIME watching commercials I couldn't skip. I already have better than that in my DVR, I'm not trading backward...
Sorry, but have you seen the selection of instantly watchable content on Netflix? This is basically what Hulu is considering. It's crap. Utter, and pointless crap. About 1% of the selections are current big budget movies, the rest is stuff from the 70's or movies that were so bad that they never even made it to the theater. There are of course the few classic gems, but do you ever think you're going to see Star Wars up there? Not a chance. The big studios will NEVER loosen the grips on their money makers to the likes of Instaview. They are going wring every last cent out of it... forever. Why? Because they're idiots.
I think this is good in that it will remove Hulu.com from my list of sites that I visit. If they do this, then I for one will never go back. Sorry folks. You can't put the dust back on the butterfly's wings. We've been getting stuff free--and not really all that good of stuff moviewise--and to expect money? Well, g'bye!
I bet after it goes pay it will still have ads.
Well, just like magazines.
First of all, I don't remember ever "no ads" being the selling point of cable.
Just because you don't remember it that way, it did not happen like that?
I remember it, and the 'no commercials' was THE marketing hype for cable. It only lasted a year or two, but it was definitely the angle they used to market this 'new cable service' back in the beginning.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
In a related story, I won't be watching Hulu anymore next year.
So, I'm wondering: what is it they're actually saying about the 'sustainability' of their current model? Is it that ads are not a sustainable revenue source for a medium which requires such large amounts of bandwidth?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
From TFA: "It was not clear how a potential purchase by Comcast Corp. of a controlling stake in General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal will affect Hulu. Talks are ongoing."
nothing good ever comes from comcast....
The TV studios need to realize that the internet and bittorrent are not going away. They need to adapt and learn to use these technologies to their advantage.
They should release directly and officially to bittorrent with tastefully inserted ads. If the ads aren't overly obnoxious, people will be more likely to stay with the official, legitimate version and less likely to remove them or grab copies with the ads already removed.
Bittorrent also has the practical advantage of providing ratings with an enormous sample size. Even if the viewer to downloader ratio isn't exactly 1:1, bittorrent tracker stats would still be a good indicator of popularity.
I would suggest replacing the station ID watermark with a static "Sponsored by..." notice that changes at the points when there would otherwise be a commercial break. These would be better than banners because they'd be harder to remove without destroying part of the picture and would be far less annoying and offputting than the animated [unprintable] found in some OTA broadcasts.
If advertisers are unwilling to pay as much for such watermarks tucked away in the corner of the screen, classic-style commercials interspersed at certain intervals, but these would be easier to remove or just fast-forward through. These are more annoying and disruptive if not skipped, but customers (and advertisers) are used to them. DVR and VHS have had fast-forwarding for ages with time-shifted watching. Perhaps torrent streaming could be the answer to this for those who want their shows *right now*, before the download finishes all the way.
Hulu is a step in the right direction, but Flash is annoying, restrictive, and has performance issues for non-Windows users.
I've read Grocklaw. BoycottNovell, you're no Grocklaw
There are other alternatives to Hulu. I once transferred 200+ gigs in 15 min of videos. ST-TOS S1, ST-DS9 S3, Doctor Who S2&3 etc... I just check out a bunch of full seasons from my local library here in Las Vegas, put them in my truck & drove home. Free, full DVD at DVD quality return in 2 weeks. Can't beat it!
Isn't it possible they won't charge the consumers, but instead take payments from ISPs to clear their traffic? Around here FIOs and Cablevision are in a death match to get subscribers. If only one of them were able to have subscribers viewing Hulu that would be a clear advantage. The other would have to counter.
How much is that worth?
Fuel the RIAA and MPAA
I found my up to 8MB/10MB basic cable was throttled upstream to less than 40Kbps (top end) to as low as 0Kbps 85% - 95% of the time. My downstream bounced between 8Kbps and 100Kbps...I was paying almost $50 per month. My Speedtest showed over 9000 Kbps down and over 900Kbps up. I added the $10 fee for "Turbo with with PowerBoost" the only Internet only plan that is guaranteed by the cable company to allow you to watch IP TV, Videos and Movies without problems. It promises speeds up to either 14MB or 16MB. Again these are "up to" speeds not guaranteed anything. The speed test still only showed over 9000Kbps down and over 900Kbs up, not either the 14MB or 16MB down as promised, so after a week of working on the problem, they are still trying to fix it. I hope they will.
Video still sputters, as do TV shows. Thanks to the DD-WRT software I know that they are throttling / shaping my bandwidth down to less than 40Kbps upstream still. Though I have explained to them that I need better than 250Kbps upstream, preferably 384Kbps to get a decent non-stuttering signal, the shaping software automatically decreases to the point that I there is not enough upstream bandwidth to watch any streaming content, be it IP TV, movies of video without problems. I am trying to work with them, but they either can't or do not want to open up that upstream pipe. This throttling happens no matter the time day or night 24 X 7. I know the cable channel is not saturated at 3am or 4am every night, thus the idea that the shaping software is preserving some measure of quality is just another excuse. Same is true between 9am - 4pm weekdays when most people are at work.
I am starting to think that a DSL ISP provider at under $30 per month, for a guaranteed 384Kbps upstream and 1.5Mbps downstream would be a far better solution than what I am experiencing now with Cable.
It does not matter what the downstream bandwidth is "up to", you must have a decent upstream sustained bandwidth to get a decent stream. And these are NOT high definition streams, I shudder to think what will happen then.
It does not matter what Hulu and others offer, charge, etc... if you do not have adequate bandwidth upstream, sustained, to stream content.
If the Cable people can not fix it, I will try DSL, my guess is that I will have a better streaming experience thanks to being the only one on the pipe at 384Kbps or better. And at those rates I could purchase a second DSL provider and have two DSL routers feeding into my DD-WRT controlled network. If one provider drops the packet, the other could pick it up.
The best option would be Greenlight 100MB/100MB synchronous fiber for $100 per month like they have in Wilson N.C. Heck I have considered relocating and buying a house there just for the Internet band width!
Too bad the Telco/cable company oligopoly would rather limit us then provide service. I can only hope that our politicians step up and stop this crud. Until than, your best bet might be to avoid Cable until they remove bandwidth shaping / throttling and bandwidth caps all together.
My experience has yet to be resolved and trust me when I tell you I will let you know. Hopefully the cable company will do the right thing and fix this as now I am paying over $50 per month and not receiving what they have promised me....
charge for HULU? Is this a joke? It is free now and after trying once or twice - I never go there.
I wonder how often i'll visit when they start charging?
I'm not surpriced at this. Over in the UK we get the BBC iPlayer for "free", paid by the Licence Fee - and no bloody adverts. Little Murdoch Jnr. has recently stated that the Licence Fee and the BBC charter to which it belongs represents an uneven playing field and is not fair on other broadcasters.
News Corp (specifically "The Sun") has recently changed its political support from the Labour Government to the Conservatives. The Conservative shadow culture minisiter recently stated that the BBC charter, up for review in 2015 may be radically altered to give other broadcasters a "fair share". See any conflict of interest here?
Murdoch has been working towards the dismantling of the BBC since Sky took off in the '80s (subscription service WITH adverts). I'll throw the TV out before I take the Murdoch shilling.
Considering how Murdoch pissed on the government, I doubt he'll get any kind of bail out. You don't call the president every name in the book on national TV and expect a government bail out. If Bush was in office you'd be right, as well all know Murdoch and Bush were best friends.