Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Rumors of Hulu's Subscription Plans

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

whychevron found a story discussing Hulu's plan to offer subscriptions. The rumor is that $10 a month will grant paying users the ability to get episodes older than the last five, while the current five episodes remain ad-supported. This starts pitting Hulu even more squarely against iTunes for anyone who watches more than a few shows a month.

36 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. I'd pay it by FredFredrickson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd pay for it - if they stopped being dicks.

    That means, if I could watch it on my xbox 360 (either official support, or they stop playing cat and mouse with playon.) and put support for hulu on the roku.

    Ever since the last update, playon has had to do a screen capture instead of decrypting the original stream. That gets far less performance and kills my server.

    Also I have to point out that the article mistakenly compares paying $10 for hulu (on demand) vs just watching it on "tv for free". I wonder if the author of the article still lives in his mom's basement.

    --
    Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
    1. Re:I'd pay it by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd pay for it if they made it available outside the US.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:I'd pay it by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That's about where I'm at on it too. I like the idea of Hulu, but I simply don't want to watch TV sitting at my computer monitor. In the past I've kept a regular computer hooked to the TV and just used the regular interface to pull stuff up, but it's just gotten frustrating to keep a mouse and keyboard by the TV. If they can't integrate it into something I can use with a remote (Windows Media Center, MythTV, Xbox 360, anything), then I'm just not bothering. I'm ESPECIALLY not subscribing.

      It's a shame though. If they managed to partner with some of these services I'd happily pay $10 a month for it. It beats the heck out of a $60 per month satellite bill.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    3. Re:I'd pay it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Note: I work for a telecom regulatory body in Canada.

      Hulu is being blocked at every turn. Certain companies in Canada are attempting to stop Hulu from entering the market.

      Why not try a proxy? I run a private proxy on one of my servers based in the U.S.

    4. Re:I'd pay it by Fnkmaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Completely agreed - I'd pay it too, if they'd put it on my Roku. I love Roku and all the Netflix and Amazon content (and some of the other content is okay, but not exactly worth much), but it would be *the* killer set-top box with Hulu content.

      However, the problem as I understand it though isn't that Hulu are being dicks, it's that the licensing terms they've been able to negotiate simply don't allow them to put content on set-top boxes or even make it easy for set-top boxes to access that content.

      I just don't think big media is going to let that content go to Roku or any equivalent set-top box. I mean, you'd have people canceling their subscriptions to cable right and left if that started happening. You can do it now, but you need an HTPC setup and to navigate to Hulu via a browser, and that's not quite mass-market.

    5. Re:I'd pay it by slaker · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I thought it was totally sweet that Hulu worked under Skyfire on my phone. For the couple weeks that I could do that. I listened to two weeks worth of the Daily Show (also not on Hulu any more) during a long-ish car trip and it was fantastic.

      I would expect to see device support, just like Netflix has added device support, for paying customers. We don't all have a PC in our living room to best leverage Netflix (I do and I'm sure a lot of other Slashdotters do too, but probably a lot more people have an Xbox or something).

      Also, it kind of sucks that with a 70Mbit connection to the internet at home, hulu can't reliably deliver 480p streaming content to me. I expect that would need to change for paying subscribers, too.

      --
      -- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
    6. Re:I'd pay it by causality · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I use Boxee in this case as there is some integration made for Hulu. Problem I see with Hulu is the limited number of shows (incomplete full seasons).

      I wish they'd delete every 4-minute "excerpt" clip and use the space to host more complete episodes, myself. I never knew that brief clips from the middle of a show with little or no context were so popular, yet they are a large amount of the offerings on Hulu and a *majority* of the available videos on Adultswim.com.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    7. Re:I'd pay it by spire3661 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is EXACTLY why I refused to give PlayOn money. They have no control over when someone else is going to pull the plug.

      --
      Good-bye
    8. Re:I'd pay it by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 2, Informative

      lol, you'd better have a bunch of upload bandwidth to spare. I tried that when I was overseas and found that at low quality, Hulu needed around 50KB/s to remain stutter-free. Which is about double what my ISP gives me, so I spent a lot of time watching the buffer fill.

    9. Re:I'd pay it by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hulu has 3 to 4 ad breaks during a 30min show and each break is usually only 30 seconds long (a few are 15s and a few are 60s). So, if the show you're going to watch isn't worth two minutes of your time, then you might want to reconsider watching it in the first place.

      I for one applaud Hulu for the way they handle the ads. Minimal, non-invasive advertising means that they are one of only a few sites that are on my AdBlock and NoScript white-lists.

    10. Re:I'd pay it by cortesoft · · Score: 2, Informative

      The upload bandwidth he was talking about is for the VPN tunnel.... since the person hosting the VPN on the US side would have to stream the feed from Hulu to the guy outside the US.

    11. Re:I'd pay it by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's a shame though. If they managed to partner with some of these services I'd happily pay $10 a month for it. It beats the heck out of a $60 per month satellite bill.

      ... and that's why you won't see it happen. Hulu is run by the TV networks, and the TV networks still want the money from Cable/Satellite. If they make their content available online, it might become a competitive market. Instead of charging $10/month on Hulu, they'd rather lock you into paying $100/month on cable.

    12. Re:I'd pay it by bertoelcon · · Score: 2, Informative

      Most shows that would already be on ad supported networks have commercial cuts in the show that are usually noticeable in a copy that is all one piece, if they put a small ad in there in is not going to cut the flow any more than having seen it when it aired.

      --
      Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
    13. Re:I'd pay it by Jer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You pay a hundred bucks a month for cable?

      Just for cable? Without internet, or phone or anything else?

      Wow. I'm glad I don't live in your market. I don't even pay that much with Internet service bundled in.

    14. Re:I'd pay it by justin12345 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My only problem with Hulu is that they don't have enough ads. Or I suppose I should say enough advertisers. It gets very annoying seeing the same double-pits-to-chesty Axe ad 20 odd times over 5 episodes of something. I have to say they have been better about it lately, though it can still be a problem sometimes.

      --
      Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
    15. Re:I'd pay it by billcopc · · Score: 3, Informative

      No need to protect the guilty, Bell and Rogers are attempting to stop Hulu from entering the market, because they know the first thing that will happen is users will blow their unreasonably low caps and yell at CS reps until their useless little heads explode.

      The last thing the Canadian Duopoly wants is a legitimate use for all the bandwidth they've been keeping from us.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    16. Re:I'd pay it by chrish · · Score: 2

      There's also the issue of how something like Hulu (or a service like the on-demand movie watching from NetFlicks) would show just how sad their speeds are. The "Up to" speed they advertise might look decent, but what you actually get is crap.

      Rogers has been "upgrading" their network in my neighourhood (part of Pickering; 20 minutes East of Toronto, my area was built up in the 80s) by running cables from people's houses, out to trees, and down to their box by the side of the road. There are cables taped to trees and strung maybe 8' in the air. Very impressive.

      Bell claims their "Up to" 20Mbit/sec Fibe (note, not fiber) service is available at my house. Oddly, I only get about 3Mbit/sec of the "up to" 5Mbit/sec I'm paying for... so if I upgraded and paid a lot more, would I still get 3Mbit/sec, or would I get 3/5 of 20Mbit? Would it matter at all, since I'd be stuck with their caps and throttling?

      The state of home broadband and cellular service in Ontario really ticks me off.

      --
      - chrish
  2. Cheaper and better than cable by Enderandrew · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For some people this really is a great alternative to cable.

    It might even be better for networks. Fox said they make more money from Hulu on Simpsons episodes than they do from airing them on TV. And that was before this subscription revenue model existed.

    If it wasn't for sports, I'd consider canceling cable/sattelite and just watching content via the internet.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:Cheaper and better than cable by characterZer0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You forget that the cable companies are the ISPs. They would either raise their ISP rates so it would be just as profitable for them for you to get your shows through the Internet band as through the cable TV band or they would block Hulu.

      --
      Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
    2. Re:Cheaper and better than cable by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Funny

      All its going to take is an ISP throttling bandwidth passing from Hulu because it is causing "Network Congestion" before its a lawsuit

      It's a brave corporation that is willing to get between an American and his TV...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Meh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The pirate bay still has less rules, restrictions, and offers more. For a much lower price.

    What is the value of something that can be replicated perfectly. Forever. For free?

    Exactly...

    1. Re:Meh. by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because the odds of me getting a letter stating that I need to deliver my left nut to the MPAA's legal department or be run over by their legal team are considerably less likely going through something like Hulu than TPB.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Meh. by PhreakOfTime · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I find it fascinating that after the business model that you just described, that you still want to give these people money.

    3. Re:Meh. by poopdeville · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Their business model is "letting people see their stuff, in ways they profit from". If you throw a cog in those works, illegally, you shouldn't be surprised to get sued.

      --
      After all, I am strangely colored.
    4. Re:Meh. by ekhben · · Score: 2, Funny

      Meh, the camera is held too steady in the real world. Without shaking and ULTRA CLOSE FACE ZOOMs it just doesn't feel like anything is really happening, ya know?

  4. Ads by Varkrag · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sorry, but if I became a paying subscriber I would expect ad free viewing on all content.

    1. Re:Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ..and for $10/month how about the ability to download things for offline viewing?
      ..or the ability to view from mobile devices (ya know, like their advertising claims)?

    2. Re:Ads by Beelzebud · · Score: 4, Informative

      Once upon a time the promise of cable TV was that there would be no commercials.

      Too bad TV viewers are mostly lazy, because when they started airing commercials on paid TV, no one seemed to get outraged about it.

    3. Re:Ads by mcrbids · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sorry, but if I became a paying subscriber I would expect ad free viewing on all content.

      Remember when that was the deal with Cable TV? Maybe not, but I do. The more things change, the more they stay the same.... (sigh)

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
  5. International Hulu? by l2718 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The real news we are all waiting for is for Hulu to start offering world-wide viewing.

    In the pre-internet world where movies and TV programs were received by radio or cable or seen in a theater or rented on a videocasette it made sense for the rights holder to subdivide the rights based on location -- to license separately in each country. But this makes no sense for internet broadcast. You would think that in the future rights owners would exclude internet rights from the licenses which are exclusive in a geographical region (thus allowing services like Hulu to license world-wide internet rights), but this doesn't seem to be happening. Instead, the internet broadcast rights are included in the country-specific deals, which generally means that potential viewers outside the US get no service.

    By the way -- this is why I feel no compunction about downloading "pirated" versions of shows that are not available in my country. If the studio refuses to sell me a product, they can't complain when I don't pay for it ...

  6. No more buffering??? by John+Whitley · · Score: 2

    Forget old episodes, the "killer" feature they need to offer is the ability to handle prime-time streaming volume. Netflix streaming seems to have this down cold, but Hulu is almost unwatchable at times.

    1. Re:No more buffering??? by __aasqbs9791 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What time do you find the most difficult? I've yet to see a this buffering problem so I'm guess it must be the times I watch, but since I tend to watch in the morning and early afternoon. But I've watched at other times and haven't seen a problem then, either, so maybe it is regional?

  7. 64-bit flash by Kev+Vance · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Meanwhile, Hulu hasn't worked with the 64-bit flash plugin since January...

    --
    F0 07 C7 C8
  8. Re:Netflix has a better plan for only $8.99 by keytoe · · Score: 2, Informative

    By the very nature of how they acquire their content, Netflix on demand doesn't have the current season of shows. Hulu does.

    --

    Culture is more than commerce

  9. Get back to me by SCHecklerX · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... When they properly support my phone and my 64 bit linux box. Oh, and allow boxee clients. Then we will talk about me paying them for a service that I can actually use.

  10. Re:About time! by mcgrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

    just as you pay for cable / satellite and they still have commercials.

    I first got cable in 1980 when I moved to Florida, and it was great. Ten channels including Discovery (which didn't suck back then, they actually had shows about science), CNN, A&E, empty-v, ESPN, etc. plus the local channels. HBO was included, and it only cost ten bucks a month, and the only commercials were on the local channels, none on the cable channels. They didn't censor movies. There was no annoying network logo at the bottom right of the screen.

    I see Hulu and NetFlix being the same as cable is now in another 30 years' time; that is, if they survive.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!