Hulu Plus Now Available To All — But Be Warned

itwbennett writes "Peter Smith outlines some of the things you need to know before plunking down your $10 subscription fee for Hulu Plus, which yesterday came out of its invitation-only phase and is now open to everyone. First off, don't assume that paying $10 gets you out of viewing ads like it does on Netflix — and there's no way to skip them. Second, yes, there's tons of content available on Hulu Plus, but it's not necessarily the same content as hulu.com. 'So if you've been watching a show on hulu.com and can't wait to watch it on the big screen via your PS3, stop a moment and check the Hulu Plus listings,' advises Smith. And then there's the issue of performance, which at least in the preview version has been less than perfect."

All?

[meza]

What is the definition of all here? Does it for instance include Europe or anything outside of the US? Before we haven't been able to watch anything on Hulu.

huluPLUS should be huluDIFFERENT

[furrymitn]

skimming over the hulu vs hulu plus, it's a toss up of whether to pay: hulu vs hulu plus: last 5 episodes of current popular shows, whereas plus gives you all current season of 45 popular shows. 800 full seasons from hundreds of shows vs full series runs for over 90 shows Kinda seems like they should rename from huluPLUS(misnomer assumes you get hulu PLUS extras) to huluDIFFERENT

Re:Available to one country only, not to all

[Lunix Nutcase]

The term "available to all" is talking about it being available to all people that regular Hulu is already available to. Yes, yes, we know for the 5 millionth time that it's not available to Europe, etc etc. Do we really need to beat this dead horse in every Hulu story?

Re:Sounds....great??

[tverbeek]

People will pay or watch commercials, but not both. They learned their lessons from the move to cable TV.

Except that they still pay for cable TV and they still watch commercials on it. If anyone's learned a lesson from the move to cable TV it's the networks learning that people will do both.

Yep.

[name_already_taken]

It seems it still applies to the USA only. You can probably blame region-based content licensing for all these artificial limitations.

Just like how we can't pay a British TV license fee and watch iPlayer content in the USA.

This is a US-based website. A few people need to realize that and get over it.

The tagline wording could have been better - ie. "Hulu Plus no longer invitation-only", but this is Slashdot - it's not like people expect (or ever see) high journalistic standards applied here.

Re:Europe

[cforciea]

The benefit to Netflix or Hulu over a torrent or youtube is that you get material that you'd have to break copyright law to obtain through these other venues. We pay for it because it is convenient and legal.

Re:Europe

[Sepodati]

This allows the masses to watch Hulu on their TV through a PS3, Roku or whatever else adds the option. I know that's trivial to computer geeks that have a computer hooked up to their TV already, but the geeks are in the minority. It's also easier for the masses versus downloading via torrent (ignoring the legal issues for now). Some things are worth paying a little for.

I already pay for cable and a DVR, so I don't see any need for this. It makes it slightly more plausible to cut cable entirely and just go with Hulu/Netflix/Internet for "TV" watching, though.

I also imagine that content will start to be exclusive to Hulu Plus as an enticement to getting people to sign up.

Context

[Roger W Moore]

Or it's that the target audience of the story is American users of Hulu

If the story was posted on a Hulu user site that might be excusable. Using 'us', if the writer was from the US, would be imprecise but not wrong. Were I posting on a site specifically linked to one country then yes, use of 'all' to mean 'all in that country' would be fine too. However using 'all' on an internationally read site to mean "only US" is just wrong. This site is supposed to be "News for nerds. Stuff that matters" not "News for US nerds. Stuff that matters to americans." If it were I would not be reading it.

Re:Europe

[Rifter13]

It is more about doing things legally. Yes, I could torrent the shows I want to watch, but I would rather royalties go back to the studios that brought the shows to me, so they can go back and make more of that show. If you steal the shows you love, you kind of shoot yourself in the foot.

Re:All?

[jo_ham]

Ah, so much like the definition of "world" when the US talks about the "World Series".

All generally does imply everyone. "All in the US" has a different meaning, because it adds specificity.

The summary doesn't specify one way or the other, and having not researched Hulu Plus fully, I didn't actually know if "All" meant "the world" or not - they have been showing me "we are trying to bring content to your region, please be patient with us" messages every time I see an embedded player on a webpage that tries to show me a Hulu video in the UK. For all I know, that's what Hulu Plus is about. I guess not.

Re:Sounds....great??

[irondonkey]

Except that they still pay for cable TV and they still watch commercials on it. If anyone's learned a lesson from the move to cable TV it's the networks learning that people will do both.

My DVR says hi.

Re:Why would anyone pay for this

[h4rr4r]

Netflix has the DVDs. For $9 a month they will deliver them to your door, and let you use their streaming service.

Re:Europe

[spire3661]

That is not the issue at all. First of all your PC might not recognize your TV, you might need drivers, sound might not work over PC HDMI, or you have to go to sound properties and change things to get it to pump sound via HDMI. Then you get to the whole mess of how to control it (keyboard in the living room is unsightly), updates pestering you in the middle of a movie, need a new codec, it goes on and on. So NO it not just as easy as snaking a cable from your PC. I know all this becasue i spent the last decade trying to make a HTPC that is as easy to use as a plug-in piece of hardware.

Re:Context

[Roger W Moore]

Since when did "US-centric" mean "US-only"?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Europe

[santax]

Bullshit. I can define my own morals just fine. Thank you very much. Besides I have in this house over 10.000 cdroms I bought. With mostly (but not all) my own data on it. Millions of photographs I took over the years and hundreds of songs I wrote. On everyone of those blanco cdroms I had to pay 25 cent.... To go to the music and movie-studios. No sir, this is not morally wrong. It is morally wrong from THEM to ask for even MORE...

Re:Context

[Roger W Moore]

The story was only aimed at current users of Hulu.

Really? How from the headline "Hulu Plus Now Available To All — But Be Warned" did you figure that? You see, as someone not in the US this suggested that, while Hulu itself was US limited, that perhaps when paying for content the license to distribute might allow international use since real money is involved so rights owners would be being recompensed.

Using 'us', if the writer was from the US, would be imprecise but not wrong.

Why would it be wrong?

not: negation of a word or group of words as in "not wrong"

So then you equally whine about stories that are only relevant to people in the UK?...

You are missing the point. It is not the relevance at issue, it is the assumption that 'all' means just the US which is an attitude sadly only too common in the US.

They are paying to have cable

[Sycraft-fu]

People understand the idea of paying to get a service. You pay the cable company to get cable TV. For that you are a stupendous amount of channels that they deliver. However the programs themselves are separate, those require ads. Fine. When you buy an addon though, that is no ads. So you buy HBO. Those channels cost extra. Fine, you are paying to have no ads. It is a cost separate from the service.

Well now things are on the Internet. Again, people are ok with paying for the Internet. You pay the cable company, they give you Internet. Wonderful. However the content on the Internet is different, some of it has ads. Also fine. Then you have some pay for services on the Internet, like Netflix. Costs money, instead of ads. Also good.

This falls in the new category of "You have to pay for it on top of your service AND get ads." I don't think it is going to fly, particularly not given that there are alternatives. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so.

Re:Context

[Roger W Moore]

The major part of the annoyance is that Hulu would be a really nice service to be able to access from elsewhere since in many places there is no decent internet TV service. So it is particularly annoying to have your hopes raised and then dashed.