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Video Site Hulu Moves Out of Beta
Is the company doomed to fail?
Online video-on-demand site Hulu launched its private beta site back in November of last year with expectations of going live to the public this month. The site has added new features and is on track for its public launch. Several sources are reporting that Hulu is ultimately doomed to fail due to the fact that the site doesn’t own exclusive content and doesn’t demand enough revenue to stay in business. Others say that it’s a decent product but that the hype surrounding it sets up too many expectations. The general public should be able to make their decisions as early as next week which is when the public launch is predicted to take place.
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ARGONAUT
Have a nice day.
Premium Member
join:2006-01-24
New Albany, IN

ARGONAUT

Premium Member

?

Doesn't YouTube do this for free?

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Re: ?

said by ARGONAUT:

Doesn't YouTube do this for free?
Hulu is free too.

odreian615
join:2006-01-18
Chicago, IL

odreian615

Member

Re: ?

Plus Youtube looks like crap compared to Hulu or ABC online

Mactron
el Camino Real
Premium Member
join:2001-12-16
PRK

Mactron

Premium Member

Hyped expectations...

"Others say that it’s a decent product but that the hype surrounding it sets up too many expectations."

I'd say that too. It's OK, but it doesn't meet the Hyped expectations of many, Including me.

Anonymous88
Premium Member
join:2004-06-01
IA

Anonymous88

Premium Member

Ads?

if it's video ad free I'll check it out.

Jovi
Premium Member
join:2000-02-24
Mount Joy, PA

Jovi

Premium Member

Re: Ads?

Their are ads that last roughly 30 seconds 3 times in a 1 hour episode. The quality is much higher than Youtube but not nearly as good a Divx-Stage6 was. R.I.P. Stage6.
TheMG
Premium Member
join:2007-09-04
Canada

TheMG

Premium Member

Re: Ads?

Ads? No thanks. Gonna stick to my torrents.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Re: Ads?

said by TheMG:

Ads? No thanks. Gonna stick to my torrents.
Ads I didn't really mind that much.... I tested it, and the video quality is pretty good, and you don't have to wait for a torrent to come in when you missed a show. Plus it is legal, where torrents are not.

The biggest drawback I found is the webplayer. When you full-screen it on your 2nd monitor, and you move your mouse back to the first monitor to do other things, the webplayer jumps back to windowed mode, which is really annoying, and annoying enough for me to download the torrent of a TV show I forgot to put in my DVR or otherwise missed.

The webplayers from e.g. CNN and other video sites don't do this.

elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
Premium Member
join:2006-08-30
Somewhere in

elwoodblues

Premium Member

Re: Ads?

said by maartena:

said by TheMG:

Ads? No thanks. Gonna stick to my torrents.
Ads I didn't really mind that much.... I tested it, and the video quality is pretty good, and you don't have to wait for a torrent to come in when you missed a show. Plus it is legal, where torrents are not.
No torrents are legal, its the content you are trading in that's illegal. Don't lump the two of them together.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536 to Jovi

Premium Member

to Jovi
said by Jovi:

Their are ads that last roughly 30 seconds 3 times in a 1 hour episode. The quality is much higher than Youtube but not nearly as good a Divx-Stage6 was. R.I.P. Stage6.
What killed stage6 was their requiring to use their proprietary player to view. the only peeve i have with ads in the content is its the SAME AD over and over.

Anonymous88
Premium Member
join:2004-06-01
IA

Anonymous88 to Jovi

Premium Member

to Jovi
Well while that's a major improvement over TV advertising it's still something I am not interested in. 90 sec of ads is 90 sec too much.

I'd rather stick with low quality youtube videos than watch ads.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

Re: Ads?

said by Anonymous88:

Well while that's a major improvement over TV advertising it's still something I am not interested in. 90 sec of ads is 90 sec too much.

I'd rather stick with low quality youtube videos than watch ads.
The only reason theres so few ads on the online versions is that bandwidth to serve them costs money.

Anonymous88
Premium Member
join:2004-06-01
IA

Anonymous88

Premium Member

Re: Ads?

said by dvd536:

said by Anonymous88:

Well while that's a major improvement over TV advertising it's still something I am not interested in. 90 sec of ads is 90 sec too much.

I'd rather stick with low quality youtube videos than watch ads.
The only reason theres so few ads on the online versions is that bandwidth to serve them costs money.
I like when they do text advertising on the page, I can easily block that.

Video ads suck. I don't care about their expenses. I want it free and I want it now

Using Firefox, Adblock, Admuncher, HOSTS to block that crap. Also pay for DVR service through my cable co just to skip ads. Yeah I hate ads.

Jmartz0
join:2000-07-20
Tenafly, NJ

Jmartz0 to Anonymous88

Member

to Anonymous88
said by Anonymous88:

Well while that's a major improvement over TV advertising it's still something I am not interested in. 90 sec of ads is 90 sec too much.

I'd rather stick with low quality youtube videos than watch ads.
YouTube is being hit with a lot of letters lately demanding that content get yanked... Hulu is a partnership of NBC Universal and News Corporation (FOX). So the episodes that get posted on there will stay there. Yes, there are advertisements, but you don't have to worry about the stuff getting yanked for copyright violations. Everyone is complaining about how the movie studios, etc. aren't doing enough to make their content more affordable, so here you have an up-and-coming site that isn't charging a DIME to watch anything, including full length movies, but you get 90 seconds of advertising in an hour... what more do you want? You want it for FREE and without ads? How are they supposed to make any money at all? Do you still not support the people behind the scenes who spent hours and hours and hours of their lives making the stuff so you could watch it? Now that these sites are starting to show up, and with ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, etc. making full episodes with 30 miniscule amounts of commercials available on their websites, I have no sympathy for people who have issues with their internet providers giving them crap because a complaint was filed. The RIAA is a totally different nightmare, but the TV studios are at least making an attempt, and you should give them a chance before totally discounting them because of a few commercials.

But some people aren't happy unless it's totally free. In which case, I wish you luck, because it's never, ever going to happen - legally at least.

Anonymous88
Premium Member
join:2004-06-01
IA

Anonymous88

Premium Member

Re: Ads?

Then I guess I'll have to get it illegally. No problem. I hate video ads.

xirian
Premium Member
join:2003-01-26
Beacon, NY

xirian to Anonymous88

Premium Member

to Anonymous88
I don't know if they changed it since I haven't used hulu in a while, but when I was using it I would just refresh a few times until it said "brought to you with limited commercial interruption by..". Usually this meant that there was no ads throughout the show or if there was they lasted 5 seconds.

hulu is great
@comcast.net

hulu is great

Anon

Hulu rocks

I dont understand all this B.S. that Hulu is no good or wont last. WTF?

Do these people want to kill.. make it go away like Stage6?

Hulu's quality is really good(not as good as Stage6 - Divx is the best vid on the net) and it's great to catch a few shows on the fly! I dont have cable and have my PC hooked up to my 42 inch LCD, thus Hulu, Joost and others fill the content gap and saves me a ton!

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

I tried it out and made a clip from an old TV show

1 nice feature they have is to take a clip from a video and share it(LEGALLY), either through an email or by embedding the clip on a web page.

To test this out I created a 3 min clip from 1 of the funniest segments from WKRP in Cincinnati. The Turkey Day show.

»tkjunkmail.googlepages.c ··· testhulu

DoesntWork
@teksavvy.com

DoesntWork

Anon

Re: I tried it out and made a clip from an old TV show

Sorry, didn't work. Apparently I am from the wrong country, so I can't watch it.

Thanks though. Back to torrents.

Candoo3
join:2005-01-24

Candoo3

Member

Re: I tried it out and made a clip from an old TV show

said by DoesntWork :

Sorry, didn't work. Apparently I am from the wrong country, so I can't watch it.
Thanks though. Back to torrents.
Ditto ... "not supported in your country or region" ...okkkk

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Re: I tried it out and made a clip from an old TV show

Gotta love capitalism. If they can make a buck selling TV shows in other countries, they will prevent it from showing it for free. :P

But then again, in many other countries downloading of torrents isn't frowned upon as much either as here in the US.

Irony: Everyone seems to hate the US, but they all love our TV :P

scrummie02
Bentley
Premium Member
join:2004-04-16
Arlington, VA

scrummie02

Premium Member

I like Hulu

I get to watch shows I missed plus many others (old school Battlestar Galactica). There is only a couple of commercials and they're short.

It's a step in the right direction for the TV stations. Instead of going through the trouble of downloading them I can stream them on Hulu.

I hope it sticks around for a while.

helloo
@sbcglobal.net

helloo

Anon

Re: I like Hulu

I've seen all that I wanna see. Way too many junk in there. They should add Doctor Who. Even better if they would show the old Doctor Who.

Lt Belspur
join:2003-11-15
Sarasota, FL

Lt Belspur to scrummie02

Member

to scrummie02
How about Space 1999 and UFO

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

Join the private beta

So when does it come out of beta?
I believe this news item is premature
slow news day on DSLR?

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Re: Join the private beta

said by dvd536:

So when does it come out of beta?
I believe this news item is premature
slow news day on DSLR?
The word is in the next week or two.
FFH5

FFH5

Premium Member

Hulu goes live on Wednesday

Hulu goes live on Wednesday

»www.news.com/8301-10784_ ··· 1_3-0-20

fcisler
Premium Member
join:2004-06-14
Riverhead, NY

fcisler

Premium Member

I Like Hulu

I think it's definitely a step in the right direction!

I've yet to see any decent youtube videos that i actually want to watch - let alone any that look good full screen.

Hulu also has movies! Steve martin's "The Jerk"? Classic!

It's also the quickest seek time I've EVER seen for streamed content. I could jump around a 2 hour movie from 1min to 45min and it was never more than around 3 - 5 seconds from click-to-play!

And for free?

I still like having the HD divx/mkv rip to watch as I please - but for something like a monday when I ask a co-worker "did you see the new simpsons?" and they say no - within 30 seconds I can load up Hulu and show them the highlights.

WeSRT4
join:2000-11-20
Mobile, AL

WeSRT4

Member

Another for Hulu

Hulu is great IMO. I don't see why people would complain about it.
biochemistry
Premium Member
join:2003-05-09
92361

biochemistry

Premium Member

Private Only Please

Please don't come out of beta. I've been enjoying hulu. Once the public is let in, I can see the available bandwidth dropping to zilch.

devrandom
I got a pot, full of random stuff here
Premium Member
join:2003-06-28

devrandom

Premium Member

Advantages

There are some advantages to Hulu.
The quality is much, much, better than many of the other players out there on the network websites. Somebody here also mentioned seek times -- that is true also. Commercials on Hulu for me have meant ~4 second commercials, or banner ads at the top-right of the page (very small). I hope it stays this way.

This is opposed to mandatory 30 second commercials, and huge banner ads at the top.

It is an aggregrator, so you get the same experience across all media, from different networks. No asinine "You need to use MSIE to view this" experience, or figuring out everything all over again.

It just works.