Posts Tagged: ‘Hulu’

This Saturday, I was extra excited about my weekend ritual of doing laundry and watching TV on Hulu. Last week, I got an invite to Hulu Plus. I also have a PlayStation 3. With this combo I could, in theory, watch my shows on my TV instead of my laptop screen, with a minimum of muss and fuss. What I got was a little different from what I expected.

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This may be last thing that television fans want to hear after the day after the biggest premiere ever, but if you want to keeping watching shows like “Lost” on Hulu, you’re probably gonna have to pay for it — eventually.

Hulu hasn’t made an official announcement, but rumors continue to abound about Hulu’s transformation to a pay-per-view structure. Since paying for Hulu’s streaming service is all but inevitable, let’s explore how the hit Web site could separate you from your money in the near future.

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TV execs can breathe a sigh of relief now. As it turns out, in spite of all of the hype around Hulu and other streaming sites, they still represent the future of television — and that future isn’t as ominous as you’d think.

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Get it while it’s hot, kids: The future of free TV at Hulu is up in the air at the moment thanks to the proposed Comcast/NBC deal, but as of this morning, you can sample five episodes of the cult classic “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

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As Jonathan and I discussed in TechStuff Live Tuesday, Comcast has officially purchased a controlling interest in NBC Universal from General Electric. There are many things people have discussed as potential problems, and I’m sure they’ll come up during the FCC’s review of the deal. Comcast will have to reassure everyone that the company won’t promote NBC Universal networks at the expense of other channels.

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Coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth found – “It’s at bottom of the world, more than 13,000 feet high on Antarctic Plateau …” A One-Way Ticket to Mars – “NOW that the hype surrounding the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings has come and gone, we are faced with the grim reality that if we [...]

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If you’re like me, you enjoy using services like Hulu to catch up on shows and watch a movie now and then. It’s convenient — you can tune in whenever you like and watch streaming video. Who needs a television when you can access great content online?

That’s exactly what cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner are worried about. I first heard about this service on CNET’s Buzz Out Loud program. These companies recognize that customers want to access entertainment on their own terms. But that might also mean customers could decide to give up cable subscriptions and switch to the Internet for all their entertainment needs. In order to meet customer needs without giving up too much in the way of profits, Comcast and Time Warner have devised a program called TV Everywhere.

As Wired reports, the program will allow existing cable subscribers to access premium television content online. Only cable subscribers will be able to view the content. In other words, you can’t just dump your cable service and expect to watch the programs under this “premium content” umbrella. Even if you never turn your television on again, you’ll still need to pay the cable fees to watch the shows.

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I think I figured out why Hulu’s partners wanted Hulu functionality disabled in the Boxee application: Last night I was surprised to find out that the streaming video company had a division called Hulu Labs and that it’d released a desktop application for both Windows and Mac OS.

I read about it in an article by Seth Rosenblatt on CNET, who pointed out that there are four applications in development at Hulu Labs (that we know about, anyhow), but the desktop application is the only one that’s an actual download. The others are Video Panel Designer, which enables embeddable widgets; Recommendations, in which Hulu guesses other shows you might want to watch based on stuff you’ve watched in the past; and Time-based Browsing, which is great if you’re trying to watch shows from a particular era, because it groups shows together by original air date.

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It was bound to happen sooner or later. Today Disney and video streaming site Hulu announced a partnership that will put Disney and ABC programming onto the site. And, according to John Paczkowski at All Things D, Disney isn’t just adding programming, it’s becoming a partner in the venture. In fact, it’s taking a 27 percent stake.

Paczkowski said that no ESPN material will show up on Hulu as a result of this agreement. And nothing was said about Disney animation, which bums me out. I’d really like to be able to view classic animated shorts online. Though maybe that’s what the press release says when it said “popular library titles from the Walt Disney Studios.” Somehow I doubt it.

What will you see? You’ll be happy if you’re a Lost or Gray’s Anatomy fan. Also, Desperate Housewives, Private Practice, Jimmy Kimmel Live and other ABC shows. There’ll be soaps, ABC Family programming and some Disney Channel original programming.

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Some days it seems like the real purpose of the Internet is to provide a platform for power struggles between massive companies. Last year the big story was Google and Microsoft playing tug-of-war with Yahoo. This morning, the story is about The Walt Disney Company announcing that it will start providing short form videos to YouTube.

According to AP News, Disney has agreed to provide content to YouTube under an ad-revenue sharing agreement. Currently the company allows full episodes of its shows to broadcast on ABC.com, Fancast and AOL. But this agreement with YouTube only covers shorter videos and excerpts, not full episodes.

Earlier in the week, there were rumors floating around that Disney was in talks with Hulu, a popular video site. Hulu currently serves video content from providers like NBC Universal and Fox. Had the Walt Disney Company elected to move videos to Hulu, it would have created a more robust service.

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