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Hulu Plus Now Available To All — But Be Warned
itwbennett writes "Peter Smith outlines some of the things you need to know before plunking down your $10 subscription fee for Hulu Plus, which yesterday came out of its invitation-only phase and is now open to everyone. First off, don't assume that paying $10 gets you out of viewing ads like it does on Netflix — and there's no way to skip them. Second, yes, there's tons of content available on Hulu Plus, but it's not necessarily the same content as hulu.com. 'So if you've been watching a show on hulu.com and can't wait to watch it on the big screen via your PS3, stop a moment and check the Hulu Plus listings,' advises Smith. And then there's the issue of performance, which at least in the preview version has been less than perfect."
What is the definition of all here?
It's the US definition, similar in meaning to their definition of 'world' in 'world series baseball'.
After having been a part of the beta "testing" of Hulu Plus, I feel that the limited benefits they provide don't outweigh the costs just yet. For one thing, you still are having to sit through commercials (which have increased to 2x 60-second commercials at times); combine that with the fact that a good chunk of the shows I'd want to watch from Hulu.com aren't even available through the PS3 app nor on my iPhone, and I felt I wasted the two months I spent on the service. Sure, the fact you're not limited to 5 episodes back is a good feature, but it definitely isn't worth the $15 they're asking for. I know I could pick up PlayOn for a similar experience, but it really irks me that they can't provide several of these shows through their Hulu Plus apps but are perfectly capable of having them on Hulu Desktop.
Hulu has a number of problems right now which, I imagine, probably translate over to their paid subscriptions:
* Poor performance due to Flash. The latest versions of Flash have caused nothing but problems for us at home - surprisingly, worse on Windows than on Linux. We'll occasionally have to restart the browser 1-3 times throughout a show due to dropped frames and choppiness resulting from Flash leakages and the like.
* Ads. They're not only getting more obnoxious but they're getting longer and more frequent. (That one about the 'skittles tree-boy' has to be the most offensive, disturbing ad I've ever seen.)
* Decreasing content. A lot of what used to be there, is no longer (BSG). No, I don't care if I can watch a show's latest 5 episodes: character development is important to me. If I can't watch the beginning of a season (particularly if it's a drama), I'm going to skip the show.
Add in the lack of the downsides, and I don't see the benefit. Maybe for $1-5, but certainly not for $10/mo.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Slashdot seems to be very U.S.-centric. Do you have any plans to be more international in your scope?
Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.S. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.S. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.
FAQ By CmdrTaco
Ummm... no.
World series origin
I do not have dish, cable or over the air TV, my living room LCD is connected to a computer, which plays DVDs, blew-Ray disks, ripped movies, old Tivo recordings from when I had cable, netflix, hulu, and occasionally CBS.com's craptacular website.
Apparently Hulu plus is not made for me at all.
Logging in and out of the plus account to watch different shows, seeing that there was NOT ONE SINGLE THING that was on hulu plus that I wanted but could not get from Hulu or Netflix was really annoying.
I had signed up for support for other devices, but since it really didn't add anything, I dropped it after one annoying month.
I guess it is just a geek thing, but imo if you want your TV to do something that your computer can do, just connect your computer to your TV, it isn't that hard, you don't even really need a special cable nowadays as many comps come with hdmi ports. (My "TV" computer us a $150 cheapo machine that does the job just fine.)