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Subscription-Based 'Hulu Plus' Is Now Official

Posted by kdawson on from the whenever-wherever dept.

itwbennett writes "After months of rumors, Hulu officially announced its $9.99/month Hulu Plus service. Invites will soon start rolling out in weekly batches. So what will you get for that $9.99? 'Full access to a bunch of current shows (Hulu lists 40 but adds 'and more' to that list) as well as complete series collections of some older titles such as The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the wonderful and mostly-ignored Eli Stone,' writes blogger Peter Smith. 'HD content sources will be streamed at 720P but Hulu mentions that the service is ad-supported.'"

27 of 434 comments (clear)

  1. HD Sources by therealobsideus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So not only will I be paying $9.99 but I'll also be watching ads? Hmm... no.

    1. Re:HD Sources by Psyborgue · · Score: 4, Informative

      Netflix already does that. HD too, even on pc.

  2. Wait... by TheGreatHegemon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So you pay 9.99, and then still have ads on top of it? Absurd.

    1. Re:Wait... by AnonymousClown · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you pay 9.99, and then still have ads on top of it? Absurd.

      Worked for cable.

      --
      RIP America

      July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001

    2. Re:Wait... by Darkness404 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Cable though you didn't have a choice. With the internet, we do. Hulu isn't competing against cable, Hulu is competing against torrents. So lets do a comparison here.

      Convenience: Hulu would win here, but it decides instead to limit its access not only geographically but also by device. I can watch a torrented show on my laptop, desktop, HTPC, cell phone, Wii, Xbox, PS3, etc.

      Price: You can't compete with free unless you give a much better product

      Quality: Torrents don't have ads. However, you do have to deal with crappy rips and mislabeled media so its a tie.

      Value for the money: With Hulu you get a lesser product than a torrent which is more inconvenient, torrents are portable and free and ad-free.

      I think torrents still win, which is rather sad because Hulu could easily be better than torrents but instead they have their head in their ass.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    3. Re:Wait... by kithrup · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unskippable ads. Unlike with cable (with a DVR), where you can fast forward or skip through them, if you've recorded it.

    4. Re:Wait... by ThisIsForReal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Antennas are great. You should try one sometime.

      --
      -THE END-
    5. Re:Wait... by egburr · · Score: 4, Informative

      Cable originally started with "no ads" as the big selling point. After only a few years, the "no ads" was only on the "premium channels" for which you paid even more, while regular cable got more and more ads as the number of different channels kept increasing.

      At least Hulu is just starting off admitting they need the ads along with the subscription fee. This is probably to cover costs of getting permission to provide the shows and also is probably just enough to cover network bandwidth of the high-volume movie watchers.

      --

      Edward Burr
      Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
    6. Re:Wait... by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I disagree. If you read the comments on the trackers then you can pretty much avoid poor quality rips. To bittorrent something I have to spend about an hour to get it including finding a torrent and then the time to download it. With hulu I just go to hulu.com, type in "family guy", and click play. I have to watch about 2-5 minutes of ads, which is far less than downloading the torrent.

      That said, if it's a movie then it's not worth it to go to hulu. The commercials ruin the mood and flow of the movie, whereas TV shows are actually designed with commercials in mind. If it's something that I want to watch more than once then I will torrent it because I'll have to watch the ads on hulu multiple times.

      It's not a "bittorrent is always better" or a "hulu is always better".

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
    7. Re:Wait... by Hadlock · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree with Caimlas, $10 a month for netflix is a much better deal. There's enough past seasons of TV shows on netflix to fulfill my entertainment needs. I am perfectly fine being one year behind the TV curve via netflix DVDs.
       
      Hulu must have gotten royally shafted on their licencing terms to have to advertise on a paid TV stream; netflix and hulu are offering essentially the same services at the same prices but one is with and the other is without ads. As someone long used to not seeing ads, it's easy to choose which service I'd prefer.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    8. Re:Wait... by hedwards · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But it's more expensive than Netflix with advertising and a smaller catalog. Which is the problem. They're not competing with cable, they're competing with Netflix, and if this is the best they can do they aren't going to win.

      $120 a year for the privilege of watching ads during the viewing is insulting. Perhaps if they made it pay as you watch up to $10 a month it would feel so bad, but a flat $10 a month is just way too much for what they're offering. Personally I won't be paying, I don't mind watching a few commercials, but expecting me to pay for that kind of limited selection and watch ads is just a tad bit insulting.

    9. Re:Wait... by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You can fast forward or skip through ads on Hulu if you've recorded the show with RTMPDump.

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      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    10. Re:Wait... by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yuck. I just have uTorrent grab them automatically from my RSS feed with filters for the show I want. Took me 20 minutes to set up. I spend 6.2 seconds a week maintaining it, all my TV shows just magically appear.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. Nice for Netflix by swarm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds like Hulu is doing good advertising for NetFlix to me.

  4. Ad-supported? by eihab · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You mean to tell me you have to wait for an invitation to a paid for product that's ad-supported? What are they thinking?

    Their collection of shows do not seem that impressive either. Where's Weeds/Big Love/True Blood, or whatever people are watching nowadays?

    I have a hard time believing that this is going to go anywhere. My $10 a month stays with Netflix, color me unimpressed.

    --
    If you can't mod them join them.
  5. Anything! by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Charge for it, put ads in it, charge a low price and put ads in it, but for crying out loud make Hulu available in Canada.

  6. netflix? by farble1670 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    netflix is $8.99, is ad-free, has more content, has many client platforms (PC, mobile, wii, playstation, roku, etc), and includes DVD rentals by mail.

    what are they thinking?

    1. Re:netflix? by Rinikusu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      While the back catalog is nice, my primary usage of hulu is to watch current shows. I don't have cable, nor netflix. Does netflix have current episodes or do you have to wait for the DVD set to come out?

      --
      If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
    2. Re:netflix? by Itchyeyes · · Score: 3, Informative

      what are they thinking?

      My guess is that they're thinking that timeliness is worth something. Not everybody wants to wait 6 months from the time an episode airs to watch it on Netflix. In fact, I think the overlap between Hulu and Netflix is actually very small, as Netflix doesn't feature content until it makes it to DVD, or in many cases even 30 days after that, and Hulu doesn't feature content after a season has finished airing.

    3. Re:netflix? by Psyborgue · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A lot of content on Netflix is 720p HD too... and on both my mac and pc Silverlight video is smoother than flash (even with flash 10.1 hardware decoding).

  7. So lets see here by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So lets see I still get A) Ads B) Stupid blocking so I can't watch it on different devices and C) I'd have to wait for an invite?

    Count me out.

    To all "media" executives take a few things in note, I can go to the pirate bay and get shows ad free that I can watch everywhere without stupid little geographic or device limitations. Oh and its free.

    Look, we have no problems buying your crap, but when its easier to pirate it and you get a better product? Why not download it?

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  8. not competitive with netflix by fermion · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Unless they are going to pull the free service and make everyone pay 9.99, this is not really competitive with Netflix. Netflix is 8.99, has iPad support, and allows one disk at a time for the large amount of content, for instance Star Trek, which is not available for streaming.

    Now, if for the $10 there are no commercials, and there is not silly wait time, and the full season is available, then that might be an incentive. But then Hulu Plus is going to have ads, will likely have the same time delay as now, and will likely limit the number of shows, so I wonder what the $10 buys? The ability to watch shows on the iPad? I suspect that once again these people have missed a grand opportunity to stop unlicensed file sharing. I think for $10 many people would give up downloading files they could get for free anyway with a DVR. It is incomprehensible why the broadcasters would not take advantage of such an opportunity.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  9. Re:Goodbye Hulu by JustinOpinion · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hulu Plus is not meant to replace the normal Hulu.com experience. Everything in the press release basically talks about added features that you can get access to if you're willing to pay... but there is nothing to suggest that they will get rid of the standard way of accessing Hulu: going to the website and streaming whatever episodes are on offer for free (and by 'free' I mean 'watching ads').

    Now I suppose one could argue that this is just the first phase of them getting rid of the standard Hulu.com. But I think that's pretty unlikely, because what they are offering here is really not at all compelling. These are what they are offering:
    Hulu.com
    Stream from website to computer.
    Stream to any Internet-capable device or television set if you know how to do some basic config (e.g. hook up some cables).
    Deal with only having access to a subset of episodes for any given show (usually only the recent ones).
    You have to agree to watch ads.

    Hulu Plus
    Stream from website to computer.
    Stream to an iPad, iPhone, or some compatible set-top boxes.
    Streaming to other devices requires knowing how to do some basic config.
    Access to more episodes. (But by no means an exhaustive catalog.)
    Potentially better video quality than standard Hulu (but still limited by your net connection and buffering...)
    You have to agree to watch ads.
    You have to pay $10/month.

    So... for $10/month you can get your shows on your iPad and access a few more episodes. But that's about it. This is not the compelling deal many were hoping for. With this kind of deal, Hulu.com will remain by far the more prevalent user experience. Really, people who are ready to drop money on a new set-top box or a monthly subscription or something like iPad 3G + 3G data plan + Hulu Plus subscription will probably be better served by other offerings (like buying shows on iTunes and downloading them to the device... which is probably cheaper since you can grab the shows over cheap WiFi and watch them later...).

    The normal Hulu isn't going anywhere. Not with a lackluster deal like that!

  10. Speaking of "Entitlement Complex" by Beelzebud · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hulu isn't entitled to my money!

    If you think it's great, then by all means pay for it, but don't act surprised when not everyone thinks exactly like you do..

  11. BitTorrent by slasho81 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm keeping with BitTorrent. It's fast, free, without ads, and has every conceivable show or film in a format displayable on every device/platform.

  12. Stutter? by lymond01 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So when I blow hulu up to a 55" LCD with a DVI cable and gaming computer, it stutters like claymation. Doesn't buffer, etc, it's just not a smooth playback whatever the resolution. YouTube has no such problems even when watching 720p video.

    Will that $9.99 give me decent performance?

  13. Re:Goodbye Hulu by znerk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because they're charging for stuff that used to be free. That's why.

    This does not replace regular Hulu. Go read up on this before you fly off the handle.

    Au contrair, the stuff they're now charging for access to started quietly slipping off of the site months ago... Whereas you used to be able to watch entire seasons of programming on Hulu, now only the most recent several episodes are available. Any "flying off the handle" is justified; my own Hulu viewing has been severely curtailed by this development.

    It may not be replacing "regular" Hulu, but that's only because "regular" Hulu has been getting stripped down for the past several months... apparently in preparation for this step.

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