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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? Does it for instance include Europe or anything outside of the US? Before we haven't been able to watch anything on Hulu.
What is the definition of all here?
It's the US definition, similar in meaning to their definition of 'world' in 'world series baseball'.
So if it adds some content to Just Plain Hulu, but meanwhile doesn't include all of the content from Just Plain Hulu, wouldn't that it make it "Hulu Plus Or Minus"?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Except that they still pay for cable TV and they still watch commercials on it. If anyone's learned a lesson from the move to cable TV it's the networks learning that people will do both.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
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.
The benefit to Netflix or Hulu over a torrent or youtube is that you get material that you'd have to break copyright law to obtain through these other venues. We pay for it because it is convenient and legal.
This allows the masses to watch Hulu on their TV through a PS3, Roku or whatever else adds the option. I know that's trivial to computer geeks that have a computer hooked up to their TV already, but the geeks are in the minority. It's also easier for the masses versus downloading via torrent (ignoring the legal issues for now). Some things are worth paying a little for.
I already pay for cable and a DVR, so I don't see any need for this. It makes it slightly more plausible to cut cable entirely and just go with Hulu/Netflix/Internet for "TV" watching, though.
I also imagine that content will start to be exclusive to Hulu Plus as an enticement to getting people to sign up.
Because we live in Amerika, where politicians are bought and paid for by the big media companies. Unlike European countries (yeah, I am making a gross generalization here) where your politicians at least make an half-hearted attempt to protect your rights. Ours sold them at firesale prices to the content companies. So we're to either pay up or face insane fines and/or jail terms.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Except that they still pay for cable TV and they still watch commercials on it. If anyone's learned a lesson from the move to cable TV it's the networks learning that people will do both.
My DVR says hi.
Netflix has the DVDs. For $9 a month they will deliver them to your door, and let you use their streaming service.
That is not the issue at all. First of all your PC might not recognize your TV, you might need drivers, sound might not work over PC HDMI, or you have to go to sound properties and change things to get it to pump sound via HDMI. Then you get to the whole mess of how to control it (keyboard in the living room is unsightly), updates pestering you in the middle of a movie, need a new codec, it goes on and on. So NO it not just as easy as snaking a cable from your PC. I know all this becasue i spent the last decade trying to make a HTPC that is as easy to use as a plug-in piece of hardware.
Good-bye
You're paying the ISP to transfer the data, Hulu is providing the content which is supported by the ads. If you're paying the ISP for data, and paying Hulu for the content, then having to watch the ads seem to be a pretty poor deal.
The story was only aimed at current users of Hulu.
Really? How from the headline "Hulu Plus Now Available To All — But Be Warned" did you figure that? You see, as someone not in the US this suggested that, while Hulu itself was US limited, that perhaps when paying for content the license to distribute might allow international use since real money is involved so rights owners would be being recompensed.
Using 'us', if the writer was from the US, would be imprecise but not wrong.
Why would it be wrong?
not: negation of a word or group of words as in "not wrong"
So then you equally whine about stories that are only relevant to people in the UK?...
You are missing the point. It is not the relevance at issue, it is the assumption that 'all' means just the US which is an attitude sadly only too common in the US.
I (naively) though Hulu plus was going to be ad-free. Since it's still got ads, what is the point? What are you paying for? The ability to watch TV on your playstation? Even though you can already watch Hulu for free on your PC? That makes no sense - if they want ad revenue they should be pushing it out to every device imaginable.
When I heard about the upcoming Hulu Plus release I decided to give the regular Hulu a try for the first time. What a disappointment, I tried to watch the first episode of Hawaii-Five-Oh to see what it was like, but I guess it was too late to still see the series premier, as they only went back as far as episode 3. (don't ask me why they wouldn't have all episodes of a brand new show)
So I started watching episode 3 and it hung my browser. I restarted my browser and was able to watch to the second commercial, then the screen dimmed and a message appeared on the top of the playback window saying something like "your browser must allow ads to view this content", though the show continued playing, just dimmer. Conveniently, ads continued to play at full brightness and played just fine, but the show itself was dimmed out, so I continued to watch.
Then I paused it for 30 minutes to take a phone call and when I came back, it seemed to have timed out and I had to start over. Trying to skip back to where I left off made me sit through more ads - the same ones I had already seen.
So I gave up - I'll wait 'till it's available on Netflix. Or not. But I'm definitely not going to pay money for Hulu Plus after that experience.
People understand the idea of paying to get a service. You pay the cable company to get cable TV. For that you are a stupendous amount of channels that they deliver. However the programs themselves are separate, those require ads. Fine. When you buy an addon though, that is no ads. So you buy HBO. Those channels cost extra. Fine, you are paying to have no ads. It is a cost separate from the service.
Well now things are on the Internet. Again, people are ok with paying for the Internet. You pay the cable company, they give you Internet. Wonderful. However the content on the Internet is different, some of it has ads. Also fine. Then you have some pay for services on the Internet, like Netflix. Costs money, instead of ads. Also good.
This falls in the new category of "You have to pay for it on top of your service AND get ads." I don't think it is going to fly, particularly not given that there are alternatives. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.