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How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

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Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#32
I recently cancelled my netflix (streaming) subscription because the selection isn't very good. Until I can watch the current a-list TV shows and movies, it just seems like a constant compromise not worth making. Instead I watch hulu or other online streaming for TV shows, and rent movies from amazon on demand (much much better selection for recent releases). Then again, I have a mac mini hooked up to my TV so it's no problem watching any internet streaming video on it.

Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#33
post #24
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hardly the one to pay for anything, but I do play for netflix. And at just $15, it's a far far better alternative than paying for cable. I get to watch anything, at any time that I want? It's the way TV should be nowadays. the only downside is that netflix recommendations don't work too well for me. Too often, I spend more time picking what to watch, rather than just watching something.

The other downside is you only get 2 channel audio.

Personally, I prefer to keep my audio quality merely decent (I have two Infiniti speakers, $100 each in 1996), so that I can still enjoy it when all I have handy is the $10 earbuds I keep in my belt pouch.

Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would probably cost Netflix more to add Linux support (and test it, and continually support/update/test it for the rest of forever) than they would ever make off of it, at this point. And that's without the cost of advertising that feature. I have always thought that if you choose to run Linux, you're smart enough to figure out a way to get things to run on Linux that don't officially support it. (What percentage…

Us Linux users are used to using unsupported/"use at your own risk" software, so that definitely lowers costs. Right now what prevents Netflix from running on Linux is Microsoft. They will license PlayReady DRM but won't license it to run on Desktop Linux boxes, citing some sort of bogus "security" issue. I would think that an XP box would be much less secure than a Linux box. It's just a business decision masqueradi…

It'd be much easier on Linux to tap the video stream from the Silverlight player. You could probably do it in userspace, with a modified X server, or even something like Xnest. The only way I can think of for Silverlight to get around it would be to talk to the GPU directly. (Even then, it might be possible, with a virtual machine that installs a special GPU.)

Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#35
post #24
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hardly the one to pay for anything, but I do play for netflix. And at just $15, it's a far far better alternative than paying for cable. I get to watch anything, at any time that I want? It's the way TV should be nowadays. the only downside is that netflix recommendations don't work too well for me. Too often, I spend more time picking what to watch, rather than just watching something.

The other downside is you only get 2 channel audio.

5.1 on the ps3: http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/14/netflix-on-ps3-goes-disc-...

Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#36
post #6

As an Ubuntu user in Canada, they've both lost their place in my world. Netflix is here, finally - 12 or 13 years later than the USA - but they don't support Ubuntu. And Hulu's still constrained to There's so much room in this space to innovate, with Step 1 being LEAVE THE USA! And Step 2: Use the WEB! Why can't we get rid of these proprietary plugins? Any company that does both 1 and 2 will be immensely successful.

>in Canada

A VPN service at few dollars a month allows perfectly good viewing of Hulu and Netflix (with appropriate hardware/setup).

Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#37
I can look at all the streaming content on Netflix and know it'll play on my computer, iOS device, Xbox, TiVo, Roku, whatever.

Hulu, however, has content that is web-only. For example, I can't watch the Simpsons on my phone, only on the web, even though I thought part of the deal with paying for Hulu Plus was having it on other devices. Why pay for being able to watch content on your TV when they don't permit you to watch the popular stuff on anything but a PC?

And given what they did to Google TV users, I know that if it were technically possible for Hulu to identify you were watching on a TV-connected HTPC and block you for it, they probably would.

Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#38
These two companies don't do the same thing under the hood. Netflix has a lot more time to do it's transcoding than Hulu does. Hulu gets their content from studios and has to have a turnaround of hours sometimes, whereas Netflix can take weeks to get something online.

Yes, there's a battle for the livingroom going on, and Netflix could start building out the same infrastructure. But it's not trivial for Netflix to just step in and 'steal' away Hulu's customers without first doing a lot of work to lower their transcoding turn-around.

For now, both companies have their place because they're not providing the exact same service to the studios.

Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#39
Hulu lost me when they began actively blocking Hulu.com from anything that isn't a desktop/laptop. My Android device has flash, but they disable their site if you aren't on hardware that has their blessing. I'd still see all the ads, so why make your customer's life more difficult?

Re: How Hulu Lost Its Place In a Netflix World

#40
It's all been stated before. With Netflix I can watch anything I want whenever I want on whatever device I want with no ads. That's worth paying for. You can't get that with Hulu's limited selection and web-only viewing experience. I don't mind missing out on current episodes because I have hundreds of thousands of other stuff to watch. In the current episode space, Hulu also competes with the networks themselves. ABC, CBS, Comedy Central, etc all have their own streaming video websites.
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