Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients) • Hacker News Board

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#11

Post by jmtulloss » Thu, May 28, 2009, 7:34 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #4

It'll be interesting to see how this works. As a user I'm a fan of thick clients, but it's an unanswered question whether and when thick clients are a valuable companion product for a web app. This is another data point to that question. (I guess Twitter is another example of a place where thick clients have a clear place alongside the standard web thin client, but that's somewhat different in that these thick client…

In this case, the value added seems to be the ability to use a remote.

Browsers should probably eventually have some way of detecting and using specialty hardware on the host. It's a pretty apparent limitation right now.

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#12

Post by latortuga » Thu, May 28, 2009, 8:01 PM UTC

jmtulloss wrote: post #11

philwelch wrote: post #4

It'll be interesting to see how this works. As a user I'm a fan of thick clients, but it's an unanswered question whether and when thick clients are a valuable companion product for a web app. This is another data point to that question. (I guess Twitter is another example of a place where thick clients have a clear place alongside the standard web thin client, but that's somewhat different in that these thick client…

In this case, the value added seems to be the ability to use a remote. Browsers should probably eventually have some way of detecting and using specialty hardware on the host. It's a pretty apparent limitation right now.

Not to mention the fact that it runs independently from your browser tab. I know that Chrome already has separate processes for each tab but no other browser has that yet and sandboxing a video player in its own application is great for stability.

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#13

Post by quizbiz » Thu, May 28, 2009, 8:07 PM UTC

Did hulu have "labs" before this? heheh

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#14

Post by dgallagher » Thu, May 28, 2009, 8:48 PM UTC

justinsb wrote: post #6

nwjsmith wrote: post #2

Probably the real reason they put up such a fight against Boxee.

Agree - and if/when they do a deal to put Hulu on the Apple TV, then the Apple TV would be a much more compelling product. I like Boxee, but I don't think I would use it if Apple TV provided an easy way to add custom 'websites/channels' e.g. Hulu.

Boxee is on Apple TV if you hack it. It did have working Hulu support in the last April 2009 build (currently Hulu isn't working for me on it, as of about 2 weeks ago - they might have broke it again, and Boxee is semi-slow at releasing updates for their Apple TV build).

The interface is a bit clunky (due to an underpowered Apple TV). It works and it does give you this "Oh, that's cool!" feeling, but it's not quite there yet. If the interface was sped up more (especially when you're navigating the menu's while a video is playing in the background), I'd love it. Comedy Central and TED video's stream wonderfully! :)

Out of the box though, Apple TV is nearly useless unless you buy lots of content off of iTunes for it.

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#15

Post by mtrichardson » Thu, May 28, 2009, 9:04 PM UTC

maximilian wrote: post #5

Despite being Air based, do you think the os x performance will be any better? I hate flash mostly because it performs horribly on os x.

Try using Safari. It plays Flash much, much better than Firefox.

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#16

Post by trickjarrett » Thu, May 28, 2009, 9:42 PM UTC

Interesting note, it does NOT require an Intel processor. The site went live with that in the requirements copy, but in truth it's just a suggested minimum in terms of processing power.

I and @hulusupport hashed this out via twitter today and the copy should be changed to reflect this soon.

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#17

Post by GeoJawDguJin » Thu, May 28, 2009, 9:52 PM UTC

That's nice. Now let's see an official client for set-top boxes, and maybe phones.

It's very buggy, by the way. Crashes within 30 seconds every time I use it.

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#18

Post by blasdel » Thu, May 28, 2009, 11:05 PM UTC

What an enormous waste -- why bother distributing a desktop app if you're going to stick with Flash? Taking the browser out of the mix doesn't solve anything except direct access to a remote control.

The video rendering would be a full order of magnitude more efficient if it wasn't blitted through Adobe's craptacular runtime firs, all just to get some measly overlays.

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#19

Post by tptacek » Fri, May 29, 2009, 12:30 AM UTC

blasdel wrote: post #18

What an enormous waste -- why bother distributing a desktop app if you're going to stick with Flash? Taking the browser out of the mix doesn't solve anything except direct access to a remote control. The video rendering would be a full order of magnitude more efficient if it wasn't blitted through Adobe's craptacular runtime firs, all just to get some measly overlays.

It's a bit weird to downplay direct access to a remote control in a set-top application.

Re: Hulu Desktop (Mac and PC clients)

#20

Post by jimbokun » Fri, May 29, 2009, 12:50 AM UTC

blasdel wrote: post #18

What an enormous waste -- why bother distributing a desktop app if you're going to stick with Flash? Taking the browser out of the mix doesn't solve anything except direct access to a remote control. The video rendering would be a full order of magnitude more efficient if it wasn't blitted through Adobe's craptacular runtime firs, all just to get some measly overlays.

"Taking the browser out of the mix doesn't solve anything except direct access to a remote control."

Can you name a more important feature for a TV application?