Subscription-Based 'Hulu Plus' Is Now Official 434
itwbennett writes "After months of rumors, Hulu officially announced its $9.99/month Hulu Plus service. Invites will soon start rolling out in weekly batches. So what will you get for that $9.99? 'Full access to a bunch of current shows (Hulu lists 40 but adds 'and more' to that list) as well as complete series collections of some older titles such as The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the wonderful and mostly-ignored Eli Stone,' writes blogger Peter Smith. 'HD content sources will be streamed at 720P but Hulu mentions that the service is ad-supported.'"
HD Sources (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When I can get ad free, streamed to my TV, computer, or phone, and HD then I'll consider paying. Otherwise I'll stick with the TV I already pay for.
Re:HD Sources (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Just nothing current. I guess I forgot to add that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There are some others, e.g. Leverage with Timothy Hutton and Gina Bellman (of Coupling fame) has had as-they-were-aired availability on Netflix, and I've seen a couple of others. But it's definitely rare compared to the only-stream-older-seasons or only-on-DVD shows.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Heroes wasn't the only show, but you're right that it's not common.
I started watching Legend of the Seeker several months ago. I watched the older shows on Netflix, and was surprised to discover that Netflix was even getting the current episodes *BEFORE* Hulu did. I think Netflix was ahead of Hulu by nearly a week. I haven't found many shows like that, but it's something that I wish they'd advertise.
I prefer to watch on Netflix, whenever I can, just because I don't like ads. To be honest, I barely even
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's perfectly fine, yes.. until you catch up. They don't make old shows the way they used to.
Re: (Score:2)
Netflix has way more streaming content for that same $10 a month, and no ads, and X-Box, etc. integration. Hulu will be a fail.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That exists today. Its called Bittorrent. You didn't mention legal..
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So not only will I be paying $9.99 but I'll also be watching ads? Hmm... no.
No, you'll be downloading torrents like the rest of us. Noobs will be paying $9.99 and watching ads.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
So you pay 9.99, and then still have ads on top of it? Absurd.
Worked for cable.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Convenience: Hulu would win here, but it decides instead to limit its access not only geographically but also by device. I can watch a torrented show on my laptop, desktop, HTPC, cell phone, Wii, Xbox, PS3, etc.
Price: You can't compete with free unless you give a much better product
Quality: Torrents don't have ads. However, you do have to deal with crappy rips and mislabeled media so its a tie.
Value for the money: With Hulu you get a lesser product than a torrent which is more inconvenient, torrents are portable and free and ad-free.
I think torrents still win, which is rather sad because Hulu could easily be better than torrents but instead they have their head in their ass.
Re: (Score:2)
Convenience: hulu plus allows watching on the ipad/iphone/ps3/xbox360/internet enabled samsung blu-ray players and tv. Video starts immediately with a small buffering time. Torrents require you to finish your download and plan your watching ahead of time.
Price: $10, torrents win at free (but you have the risk of getting an MPAA letter) Quality: 720p HD streams with hulu plus. I would say that with compression they are probably on the level of the divx streams
Re: (Score:2)
They support X-Box 360 now? From what I understand you need Playon, which doesn't allow rewinding or fast forwarding, and it transcodes which mangles the quality.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Torrents require you to finish your download and plan your watching ahead of time.
It requires five minutes of setup to have automatic downloads of shows you know you're going to watch.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, if it's a movie then it's not worth it to go to hulu. The commercials ruin the mood and flow of the movie, whereas TV shows are actually designed with commercials in mind. If it's something that I want to watch more than once then I will torrent it because I'll have to watch the ads on hulu multiple times.
It's not a "bittorrent is always better" or a "hulu is always better".
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Yuck. I just have uTorrent grab them automatically from my RSS feed with filters for the show I want. Took me 20 minutes to set up. I spend 6.2 seconds a week maintaining it, all my TV shows just magically appear.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I also have seen people use flexget to download all the torrent files, then use the deluge plugin to auto-start and move them when done to the correct folders.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
this statement is....well how do I put it...WRONG!
Most every Hulu user I know uses it as a replacement for cable and DVR. Maybe in your group of friends you enjoy the hassle of torrents. As for me, being able to browse through my shows via remote control is nice. No searching for the latest torrent, in the quality I want, without commercials...in the amount of time it takes to find the show I can have watched all the commercials and
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No searching for the latest torrent, in the quality I want, without commercials...in the amount of time it takes to find the show I can have watched all the commercials and the episode a couple times over.
The Pirate Bay isn't the only tracker out there.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense. That's like saying Walgreens is competing against drug dealers.
No: Hulu is competing against other legal means of on-demand video distribution. The rights-holders may grant exclusivity to Hulu, in which case there really is no competition.
Re: (Score:2)
>> So you pay 9.99, and then still have ads on top of it? Absurd.
>
> Worked for cable.
>
Yup. And it's still around as a possible competitor to Hulu.
Why bother paying for Hulu when I already have cable and record anything I want off of it?
If I want TV streamed to my iPad I can point AirVideo to my MythTV recordings.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Cable originally started with "no ads" as the big selling point. After only a few years, the "no ads" was only on the "premium channels" for which you paid even more, while regular cable got more and more ads as the number of different channels kept increasing.
At least Hulu is just starting off admitting they need the ads along with the subscription fee. This is probably to cover costs of getting permission to provide the shows and also is probably just enough to cover network bandwidth of the high-volume movie watchers.
Re: (Score:2)
Yea! They should do like cable TV and satellite, and charge you $50 and have ads.
My guess is $10 pays for the bandwidth, and the ads pay for the content, actually.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Compared to the anywhere between $45 and $100 people pay for cable and still get ads?
If Hulu had a few more things, and especially if they integrated with my TiVo Series 3, I'd seriously consider dumping cable.
Full on-demand shows, with ads, for 10-20% of what I pay for non-on demand shows, with ads.
Re: (Score:2)
Most people only pay for cable these days to get cable Internet. They get it bundled, and it's something like $5 (more or less) to un-bundle it. WTF? So they get cable.
The people who are paying $100/month are likely the ones who spend all weekend watching sports broadcasts on their wall plasma displays. There's no other way to get those sports broadcasts (yet) that is user accessible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unskippable ads. Unlike with cable (with a DVR), where you can fast forward or skip through them, if you've recorded it.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can fast forward or skip through ads on Hulu if you've recorded the show with RTMPDump.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only that, but at $10/month, why wouldn't I just get Netflix? That's $9/month - and you can get DVDs in the mail of said shows, as well as many, many more.
For free with minimal ads, I'm willing to put up with a small degree of inconvenience and lack of QoS. If I'm going to pay, I want a guarantee of QoS. I don't mind so much if it takes a couple days to get it, but if I'm going to have to deal with their connectivity issues (or my ISPs), no thanks. Watching a show half way through, losing connectivity,
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that, but at $10/month, why wouldn't I just get Netflix? That's $9/month - and you can get DVDs in the mail of said shows, as well as many, many more.
That seems to be the elephant in the room hulu is ignoring, or is missing completely in their thought-process. Their customers are already savvy enough to watch shows online, do they really think they can't make the comparison between this and Netflix and not see that Netflix is the better value at the same cost?
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with Caimlas, $10 a month for netflix is a much better deal. There's enough past seasons of TV shows on netflix to fulfill my entertainment needs. I am perfectly fine being one year behind the TV curve via netflix DVDs.
Hulu must have gotten royally shafted on their licencing terms to have to advertise on a paid TV stream; netflix and hulu are offering essentially the same services at the same prices but one is with and the other is without ads. As someone long used to not seeing ads, it's easy to choose which service I'd prefer.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Speaking of "Entitlement Complex" (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think it's great, then by all means pay for it, but don't act surprised when not everyone thinks exactly like you do..
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
$120 a year for the privilege of watching ads during the viewing is insulting. Perhaps if they made it pay as you watch up to $10 a month it would feel so bad, but a flat $10 a month is just way too much for what they're offering. Personally I won't be paying, I don't mind watching a few commercials, but expecting me to pay for that kind of limited selection and watch ads is just a tad bit insulting.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And for god's sake, the ads on Hulu are as un-irritating as advertising can possibly be.
Some shows at least, they show the same commercial multiple times. For instance a certain embarrassing Japanese anime show. That fucking 5 hour energy drink guy looks like a douche and gets played every other break, that's -far- more annoying than 5 less annoying commercials you only see once.
Other than that, I agree. Many of the ads are actually for charities, which isn't bad.
Over the course of a 40-minute show, you have to watch maybe five 30-second spots, as opposed to eight or ten per break on television.
For now.
Re: (Score:2)
So you pay 9.99, and then still have ads on top of it?
Absurd.
This seems true, however at present, Hulu does ads in 'the right way'. They're exceedingly brief, rarely if ever over thirty seconds, and there's exactly one of them at any given time. An hour long show will play less than half a dozen.
I'd prefer ads done in this way and a lower cost, then a higher cost with no ads at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Hulu does ads in 'the right way'. They're exceedingly brief, rarely if ever over thirty seconds, and there's exactly one of them at any given time. An hour long show will play less than half a dozen.
Unfortunately this hasn't been true for some time. Hulu has been slowly but surely expanding their commercials to the point that there are now two in almost every break. Sometimes you get lucky and end up with two fifteen second spots, but often you're stuck watching two thirty second spots. They also added a commercial that plays before the show even begins, and have started cramming a few more breaks into opportunities in shows that they were passing up before.
It's still far better than watching on
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Goodbye Hulu (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Why would you stop using Hulu because they now offer extra content that you can pay extra for? It would be like refusing to play a video game because they released some DLC that doesn't effect your experience at all.
The new Hulu Plus just has higher quality (720 instead of 480) and episodes going back the entire season instead of just the last 3 or 5 trailing episodes. No reason to throw in the towel just cause you can now pay for a better service if you so choose.
Re: (Score:2)
The entire seasons for these shows have been on Hulu for a long time, at no cost. I'm not going to pay for shit that was free a week ago. Not to mention that they're leaving the ads in.
All Hulu did was save me a little hassle in finding something on usenet, but I'll just go back to doing things the way I used to.
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't see anything that was explicitly stating that old shows whose content is currently available was getting moved into the paywalled section an would no longer be available at the lower res so we might be jumping the gun, but then again the only old ones I watched on hulu was Stargate and firefly. Those couple of shows they did mention, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, were all those episodes already available for free?
I know the new ones usually only had a few episodes up anyways so to me it seems li
Re: (Score:2)
Those couple of shows they did mention, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, were all those episodes already available for free?
At least the first four seasons of Buffy were up for free, but they mysteriously disappeared a month or two ago. Gee, I wonder why.
Re:Goodbye Hulu (Score:5, Informative)
Because they're charging for stuff that used to be free. That's why.
This does not replace regular Hulu. Go read up on this before you fly off the handle.
Au contrair, the stuff they're now charging for access to started quietly slipping off of the site months ago... Whereas you used to be able to watch entire seasons of programming on Hulu, now only the most recent several episodes are available. Any "flying off the handle" is justified; my own Hulu viewing has been severely curtailed by this development.
It may not be replacing "regular" Hulu, but that's only because "regular" Hulu has been getting stripped down for the past several months... apparently in preparation for this step.
Re: (Score:2)
> Why would you stop using Hulu because they now offer extra content that you can pay extra for?
I never use Hulu.
The lousy navigation and the un-skippable commercials just wouldn't go over very well in my household.
We've had some form of PVR pretty much since they came on the market.
Even for free it feels like a step backwards.
Re: (Score:2)
Full seasons...check (just finished season 8 of Stargate)
High Def...check (high, medium, and low res available)
Ad based viewing...check.
Playable on multiple devices...check (last I knew android OS can play Hulu just fine so that covers many mainstream phones and all the dell iPhone/iPad killers coming out)
So what are we paying for again? The one thing I would be willing to upgrade for, better bandwidth, isnt even offered. There is nothing more fun on Hulu tha
Re:Goodbye Hulu (Score:4, Insightful)
Now I suppose one could argue that this is just the first phase of them getting rid of the standard Hulu.com. But I think that's pretty unlikely, because what they are offering here is really not at all compelling. These are what they are offering:
Hulu.com
Stream from website to computer.
Stream to any Internet-capable device or television set if you know how to do some basic config (e.g. hook up some cables).
Deal with only having access to a subset of episodes for any given show (usually only the recent ones).
You have to agree to watch ads.
Hulu Plus
Stream from website to computer.
Stream to an iPad, iPhone, or some compatible set-top boxes.
Streaming to other devices requires knowing how to do some basic config.
Access to more episodes. (But by no means an exhaustive catalog.)
Potentially better video quality than standard Hulu (but still limited by your net connection and buffering...)
You have to agree to watch ads.
You have to pay $10/month.
So... for $10/month you can get your shows on your iPad and access a few more episodes. But that's about it. This is not the compelling deal many were hoping for. With this kind of deal, Hulu.com will remain by far the more prevalent user experience. Really, people who are ready to drop money on a new set-top box or a monthly subscription or something like iPad 3G + 3G data plan + Hulu Plus subscription will probably be better served by other offerings (like buying shows on iTunes and downloading them to the device... which is probably cheaper since you can grab the shows over cheap WiFi and watch them later...).
The normal Hulu isn't going anywhere. Not with a lackluster deal like that!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
This sounds like a great time for Groucho Marx's "Hello, I must be going [youtube.com]":
Hello, I must be going.
I cannot stay,
I came to say
I must be going.
I'm glad I came
but just the same
I must be going.
For my sake you must stay,
for if you go away,
you'll spoil this party
I am throwing.
I'll stay a week or two,
I'll stay the summer through,
but I am telling you,
I must be going.
ad supported, but I have to pay for it? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the point of paying for a service like this was to avoid the ad's.
The point is to squeeze you for as much money as they can. They had managed to game the system enough to get you to pay for cable content full of advertising breaks and in-story product placement, and that's how they liked it. They want that back.
They already started applying region-locking to the internet (Hulu is only available within the U.S. AFAIK), so they can keep overcharging the places that are already used to pay more than others, and now they're moving over to the "you pay over and over again for
The Plus stands for Ads (Score:2)
Why would you charge Ten bucks a month and then still keep the advertising?
I mean aside from the if somebody is willing to pay it factor.
Nice for Netflix (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like Hulu is doing good advertising for NetFlix to me.
Ad-supported? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean to tell me you have to wait for an invitation to a paid for product that's ad-supported? What are they thinking?
Their collection of shows do not seem that impressive either. Where's Weeds/Big Love/True Blood, or whatever people are watching nowadays?
I have a hard time believing that this is going to go anywhere. My $10 a month stays with Netflix, color me unimpressed.
Anything! (Score:5, Insightful)
Charge for it, put ads in it, charge a low price and put ads in it, but for crying out loud make Hulu available in Canada.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
netflix? (Score:5, Insightful)
netflix is $8.99, is ad-free, has more content, has many client platforms (PC, mobile, wii, playstation, roku, etc), and includes DVD rentals by mail.
what are they thinking?
Re:netflix? (Score:4, Interesting)
While the back catalog is nice, my primary usage of hulu is to watch current shows. I don't have cable, nor netflix. Does netflix have current episodes or do you have to wait for the DVD set to come out?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Occasionally, Netflix has newer stuff via special deals with the distributors (Whitest Kids You Know did this for their newest season, for example). Mostly, though, no: it's best used for older titles, as it's rare to find an instant watch show or movie not also out on DVD.
So yes, I supplement Netflix with Hulu to watch new stuff. But that's the thing, here: Hulu Plus doesn't affect new shows, based on their press release. It's just to watch the older stuff. Hell, two of their own examples - Buffy and t
Re:netflix? (Score:4, Informative)
what are they thinking?
My guess is that they're thinking that timeliness is worth something. Not everybody wants to wait 6 months from the time an episode airs to watch it on Netflix. In fact, I think the overlap between Hulu and Netflix is actually very small, as Netflix doesn't feature content until it makes it to DVD, or in many cases even 30 days after that, and Hulu doesn't feature content after a season has finished airing.
Re: (Score:2)
You get newer shows, *current shows*, plus older stuff, *plus* they still have a huge catalog of really old stuff, which is free. While they lack the quantity that netflix has, they make up for it in quality. Keep in mind that Hulu is owned by a bunch of networks.
I see a lot of people bitching about ads on Hulu, but I use Hulu now, and they don't have that many ads for most shows. Many shows let you watch one 60 second ad at the beginning only, others only have 2 breaks, 3 max. Those breaks are in the 30
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I noticed recently that several shows have started having 2 ads per break.
You know, when cable first came out, they touted the lack of ads, since you were paying for the shows with your subscription.. Then they slowly creeped in, more and more...
Re: (Score:2)
It is still much less than cable, yea, but that's not going to last too much longer.
Re:netflix? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, Netflix still doesn't support closed captioning. If it weren't for this one feature, I would say Netflix would easily beat Hulu. Don't underestimate the appeal of closed captioning for the millions of viewers that speak English as their second language.
So lets see here (Score:5, Insightful)
Count me out.
To all "media" executives take a few things in note, I can go to the pirate bay and get shows ad free that I can watch everywhere without stupid little geographic or device limitations. Oh and its free.
Look, we have no problems buying your crap, but when its easier to pirate it and you get a better product? Why not download it?
Not available in Canada? Pity! (Score:2)
not competitive with netflix (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, if for the $10 there are no commercials, and there is not silly wait time, and the full season is available, then that might be an incentive. But then Hulu Plus is going to have ads, will likely have the same time delay as now, and will likely limit the number of shows, so I wonder what the $10 buys? The ability to watch shows on the iPad? I suspect that once again these people have missed a grand opportunity to stop unlicensed file sharing. I think for $10 many people would give up downloading files they could get for free anyway with a DVR. It is incomprehensible why the broadcasters would not take advantage of such an opportunity.
Re: (Score:2)
what's the big deal? (Score:2)
$10/month to watch 720p TV instead of $100/month to watch 720p TV.
I don't actually have cable, but I miss commercial breaks. that's when I would pee, poop, make food, do dishes, laundry, roll a cigarette, find my lighter, and solve a rubiks cube and I could do it all before the show starts up again.
Re: (Score:2)
I also miss commercial breaks.
Yeah, if you have to go then commercial breaks really are a good thing.
Are we talking microwave diners and paper plates here?
Wait, what?
Ok buddy, you owe me a new sarcasm detector!
Re: (Score:2)
> $10/month to watch 720p TV instead of $100/month to watch 720p TV.
If Hulu could actually replace cable you might have a point.
It can't.
Plus, the $100/month level cable service is going to have content that Hulu will only see when Netflix gets it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If Hulu could actually replace cable you might have a point. It can't.
But Hulu and Netflix get pretty damn close. And that's what, $20/month total for both plans?
Re: (Score:2)
Has anyone compared the catalogs? (Score:2)
My wife asserts that Hulu's back-season catalog is the same as Netflix. Has anyone done or seen a comparison of the two?
Re: (Score:2)
making themselves irrelevant (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean, irrelevant to YOU.
Hulu's still going to have free ad supported access to current TV shows. But to some people this might be a boon, not a bane.
It looks like what you get for 9.99 (Score:2, Informative)
no android love yet though.
Americans abroad.. (Score:2)
I'm moving to Korea soon and I'd love to be able to keep up with Family Guy and House and some of those shows, and if I could pay $9.99 a month to be able to get nice easy access to that, that would be awesome.
the question is then, can I? if my billing address is still in the USA, will it work, or will it block me due to the fact that i'll be connecting through a foreign ISP?
I didn't see anything on the initial post on hulu about that...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
the question is then, can I? if my billing address is still in the USA, will it work, or will it block me due to the fact that i'll be connecting through a foreign ISP?
I didn't see anything on the initial post on hulu about that...
My understanding is that they control access via IP and not billing address. I've ran into several issues when I was 'overseas' in Canada for work.
Canada (Score:2)
Yes, I know there are ways to get around the regional restrictions but it'd be nice if these corporations could think globally...
Ok, maybe I'm a bit bitter that it's not available north of the border yet...
Video: Foghorn Leghorn subscribes to Hulu Plus (Score:2)
.
Recommendations (Score:2)
xfiles and buffy? (Score:2)
Oh you mean like I already pay for with netflix? That's neat I guess. I'll have Scully redundancy. Actually that started off as a burn but now.. I feel more comfortable... strangely.
BitTorrent (Score:4, Insightful)
Stutter? (Score:5, Interesting)
So when I blow hulu up to a 55" LCD with a DVI cable and gaming computer, it stutters like claymation. Doesn't buffer, etc, it's just not a smooth playback whatever the resolution. YouTube has no such problems even when watching 720p video.
Will that $9.99 give me decent performance?
paid advertisement (Score:3, Insightful)
Another bunch of greedmongers who don't get it. Look, you can either sell me out to the ad companies, or take my money to provide me with a service. You can not do both. Sooner or later, the interests of the parties involved will clash, and we know that it's seldom the customer who comes out on top.
but like $40 -$120 here (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're paying for access to a larger library.
No pay you get ads and access to only certain shows and only the last handful of episodes (can't remember the actual number 4? 5?)
Pay and you still get ads but you get access to the entire Hulu library.
I personally would consider it IF they released shows as soon as they're available and had everything I was looking for. I already pay for satellite to the tune of $80 per month. This would be far cheaper.
And the reality is, if you want television content to be c