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No HTML5 Hulu Anytime Soon

Posted by Soulskill on from the give-the-people-what-you-want dept.

99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes "The Hulu website briefly commented the other day about why they would not be implementing HTML5 video for their service: 'We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn't yet meet all of our customers' needs. Our player doesn't just simply stream video, it must also secure the content, handle reporting for our advertisers, render the video using a high performance codec to ensure premium visual quality, communicate back with the server to determine how long to buffer and what bitrate to stream, and dozens of other things that aren't necessarily visible to the end user.' They plan to release a dedicated application for the iPad and iPhone instead, likely a paid subscription service. Perhaps this is a good sign for Web-based television, as it will move more users away from the single, locked down channel from the networks and to more diverse options less interested in extracting subscription fees (like YouTube)."

10 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Re:OK ... by jaryd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's probably more along the lines that Hulu isn't interested in rushing out an HTML5 app that will cost X to develop while their current client works perfectly well for the majority of their customers.

    Rather than retooling their website it is more logical to do what they are actually doing and code a standalone app that will probably get rejected from the app store.

  2. Re:OK ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, if a corporation dares to choose a widely-used product with a large install base, which fits their use requirements, as opposed to a relatively new, only moderate install base with different features available (no Firefox/Opera with H.264, no Safari/iPhone with Theora, no Internet Explorer period), which does not fit their use requirements on even one browser, then they must be 'in cahoots' with the company who makes that product.

    I know you were going for a better-than-average first post without too much thought, but really, stop listening to Apple. Adobe is not a conspiracy.

  3. At least they are honest... by sznupi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Honesty in this case - admitting that "our customers" (plus their needs) and their users aren't the same thing...

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
    1. Re:At least they are honest... by causality · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Honesty in this case - admitting that "our customers" (plus their needs) and their users aren't the same thing...

      Indeed. For any sort of no-cost-to-view "broadcaster" the actual customers are the advertisers. The correct use of the term "consumer" describes those who watch the programs for free in exchange for having to view advertisements. Customers as individual entities and small groups have barganing power while consumers only matter in very large numbers and thus the "broadcaster" relates to them in more of a "take it or leave it" fashion by comparison. Customers can take their business elsewhere; consumers must go to particular providers (i.e. copyright holders of shows) if they want a particular product.

      I have always regarded it as a form of Newspeak that a term indicative of diminished power and significance in the marketplace that comes from the jargon of one particular industry suddenly became applied to all customers in all economic transactions. One day about five to seven years ago it became in vogue to use "customer" and "consumer" interchangably as though they were the same thing. In conformance to the usual pattern, all the talking heads in the media suddenly adopted this usage and parroted each other as though they had always spoken this way. Always such Newspeak is in the form of using the degrading term to cover both cases and never in the form of using the elevating term to cover both cases.

      Observe this pattern once and understand it and you will then see it everywhere.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  4. Re:OK ... by Deadplant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is not a surprise, I work with online video professionally and html5 is not yet a serious option.
    RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and Flash are the only players that have the suite of features that are required to stream live and on-demand video properly.

    I am looking forward to the day when html5 is ready but it looks like it is a long way off.

    The "Flash is dead!" people have no idea what they're talking about.
    I mean just look at the API for windows media player or realplayer and then go look at html5... they're not in the same league.

  5. Re:Somebody call the whaaaambulance by ClosedSource · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are you referring to Hulu or the HTML5 spec writers.

  6. Customers=advertisers by fermion · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This proves once again that when the customers are advertisers the best solution is Flash. It will be some time before another technology becomes this ad friendly. As the article notes, HTML is great at delivering content, but not DRM or advertising.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  7. Re:Serious ideological problem too by Deadplant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    DRM is an unsolved problem. I tell my customers not to bother with it. Most take my advice.

    There can be no solution to DRM. All you can do is spend piles of money to make it more difficult for people to save/copy things. Then you have to do it all over again a few years later because everyone has the cracking tools installed.

  8. hulu has written an HTML5 mission statement by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The HTML5 spec authors would do well to read that hulu blog. If they really want HTML5 to win, they need to provide the support necessary so sites like hulu can do what they want to do.

    Really hulu has made it very easy for them, giving them an explicit goal to shoot for.

  9. Performance is another issue by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While people love to hate on Flash, it actually performs quite will for video on most systems. It can chat with the video card and use it to accelerate decoding. This is important for HD content because you start to discover that HD can hit even a modern dual core hard if there's no acceleration. Well Flash accelerates nicely on Windows, and is supposed to be getting the ability to do so on the Mac (not sure on the status, I don't have a Mac).

    Now I'm sure HTML5 can have this done, but it has to be done in the browsers people use before it would be a real contender. Saying "Well it could in theory accelerate video," does you fuck-all good if the web browsers out there don't do it. The net effect would be people would find HTML5 video choppy and it would bog their system down whereas Flash wouldn't. They wouldn't care about the reasons, they'd just say "This sucks."

    For that matter, all the dynamic HTML5 type stuff itself may need new browser architectures. An interesting test to look at it Microsoft's IE9 platform preview (http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/). They've got a whole bunch of different demos of various types. Now the interesting thing is to look at them in Firefox, and in the IE9 preview. IE9 kills it speed wise, and function wise. Most things run twice as fast or more, and things like text scaling is smooth and fluid as you'd see in Flash, not jumpy.

    So to truly have a good HTML5 experience, we may need a new generation of browser that makes good use of the video card to accelerate everything. As far as I know, there's nothing that does that right now, since IE9 is just a preview (and not really usable as a general web browser) and none of the rest are doing it. We may have to wait awhile before browsers can perform up to the level people would want with HTML5.