Tag Archives | Hulu

Shocker: Piracy Rises After Fox Delays Hulu Shows

Posted by Jared Newman on August 22, 2011 at 3:08 pm

When Fox announced that it would withhold its TV shows from Hulu and its own website until eight days after their original air date, a lot of people assumed that piracy would increase as a result. Now, TorrentFreak claims to have proof.

The site tracked BitTorrent downloads for two Fox shows — Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef — over the last week, when the delay began. Sure enough, during the first five days, downloads of the latest Hell’s Kitchen episode rose by 114 percent compared to the previous three episodes. Downloads of MasterChef spiked by 189 percent, with the season’s finale likely accounting for higher demand on BitTorrent.

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Hulu Plus Hits Android in Fragmented Fashion

Posted by Jared Newman on June 23, 2011 at 1:40 pm

If you’re the lucky enough to own one of six particular Android phones, you may now enjoy Hulu Plus on the go.

An app for Hulu’s premium streaming video service, which costs $8 per month, is now available from the Android Market, but only for the Nexus One, Nexus S, HTC Inspire 4G, Motorola Droid II, Motorola Droid X, and the Motorola Atrix. “We expect to add to the number of Android smartphones and will be making additional device announcements throughout the year,” Rob Wong, Hulu’s director of product management, wrote in a blog post.

The limited launch is reminiscent of Netflix’s partial Android app release last month. At the time, Netflix said that Android lacked a standard set of playback features across all Android devices, although the company previously blamed platform security issues.

Hulu’s not saying why its own Android app rollout begins with only a half-dozen devices. Except for the Nexus One and Nexus S, the devices that Hulu supports are different from the ones that Netflix supports at this time.

I guess that’s an argument for going pure Google. But with Netflix and Hulu both launching in limited fashion, it’s clear that Android needs a standard solution to make media companies happy, especially as the number of Android tablets grow. If they can’t stream media from major sources like Netflix and Hulu, they’ll have a tougher time answer the question of why you’d buy one instead of an iPad.

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Hulu Plus is Great on Xbox Live; With Kinect, Not So Much

Posted by Jared Newman on April 28, 2011 at 6:43 pm

Hulu Plus comes to Xbox Live on Friday, and Microsoft let me have an early look along with a Kinect loaner unit to check out voice and motion controls.

If you’re not familiar with Hulu Plus, it’s an $8 per month streaming movie service focused mainly on current television shows. The selection isn’t as broad as Hulu’s free website, but it’s the only way to get Hulu on set-top boxes, iPhones and iPads (without workarounds like PlayOn). It also lets you watch archived back seasons of many television shows, instead of just the most recent episodes.

The most striking thing about Hulu Plus on the Xbox 360 is how closely it resembles Netflix’s console app, and for that matter the entire Xbox 360 interface. Microsoft has imposed a nearly identical design, with a list of sections on the top left and tile-shaped movies and TV selections in a sliding horizontal strip down the middle. Even Hulu Plus’ search function works exactly the same way as Netflix, with a row of letters on top and a strip of results that narrows down as you type. Microsoft’s made some big strides in user interface lately, borrowing much of Windows Phone 7’s uniformity and design flourishes, and it shows here.

Kinect support, however, needs a lot of work.

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What’s Next for TiVo: Hulu, Streaming, Extenders

Posted by Dave Z on March 21, 2011 at 8:31 pm

While we generally shy away from rumor and speculation, TiVo’s been pretty quiet as they approach the one year anniversary of Premiere retail availability. Given our site heritage and interests, the lack of news out of Alviso can be frustrating. So we’ve whipped up a post based purely on hearsay, but one that hopefully gives some indication what TiVo is quietly working on.

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Now it's Hulu's Turn to Step on Netflix's Toes

Posted by Jared Newman on February 15, 2011 at 5:48 pm

A rivalry between Hulu and Netflix continues to silently brew. Where the two streaming services once had distinct roles — Hulu for television, Netflix for movies — they are increasingly overlapping.

To that end, Hulu just added 800 movies to its Hulu Plus subscription service, courtesy of Criterion Collection. The high-brow cinema of Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Federico Fellini and more can now be yours to stream for $8 per month.

The films will be uninterrupted by commercials, which will only roll before the movie starts. The free version of Hulu will get some Criterion Collection movies on a rotating basis, but they will be broken up by ads.

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"Welcome to Hulu Plus, Snooki"

Posted by Jared Newman on February 3, 2011 at 8:58 am

Hulu and Viacom are best pals once again, with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report returning to Hulu as free streaming videos, available the day after they air on TV.

Hulu also announced that Viacom will bring a bunch of other shows to Hulu Plus, the site’s $8 per month subscription service, including Comedy Central’s Tosh.0 and MTV’s Jersey Shore. (The above headline is a quote from Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar’s blog post.) In total, Hulu will add more than 2,000 episodes of Viacom content including Chappelle’s Show, The Hills and Reno 911.

Jon Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’s satirical news programs were among the most popular shows on Hulu before Viacom pulled them from the site in March 2010, apparently over rights disagreements.

But in addition to the news about Viacom, Kilar used his blog post to publish a manifesto of sorts on the future of digital content, touching on rumors that the site may change direction and become more like an online cable operator.

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Hulu Envy: Netflix May Pay Big Bucks for In-Season TV

Posted by Jared Newman on December 2, 2010 at 4:16 pm

Movies are Netflix’s bread and butter, but now the service is setting its sights on current television shows.

Over at the New York Post, Claire Atkinson’s unnamed source says Netflix in talks with television studios to add current primetime shows to its streaming catalog. The company is reportedly willing to spend between $70,000 and $100,000 per episode on in-season TV.

It’s probably not going to happen in the near future. Broadcast networks claim they own the streaming rights, not the studios, and they’re reluctant to make deals because they don’t want to cannibalize ad dollars reaped from syndication. I’m guessing Netflix won’t be buying many in-season shows until that gets hammered out.

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