At 1:46 AM today, Hulu launched to everybody in the United States after 18 weeks of private beta testing. Many of you have already been enjoying Hulu as one of their beta testers and so for you, this is no big deal. But to the thousands upon thousands of people who are just now hearing about this new way to watch TV shows and over 100 full-length movies for free, it is a big deal. At this point the service isn’t perfect, but it is a great way to catch up on shows that you may have missed.
As mentioned, at this point it’s available only to those living in the United States. This is obviously one of the huge downsides with people Internationally showing interest in the service. So far there’s been no word from Hulu on if or when they intend to make this service available to those in other countries. Another thing that some see as a downside is that the shows aren’t available for download.
Content on Hulu comes from providers like Fox, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures, Warner Bothers, Lionsgate, and more. In all, there are over fifty different providers which NewTeeVee lists. The shows and movies that they provide aren’t exactly high quality, but they’re not poor quality either. To make money, ads are displayed for several seconds throughout the show. The one ad I remember seeing when using the service was from Nissan, but other advertising partners include Best Buy, Intel, State Farm, DirecTV, and Chilis.
Overall, I’ve been impressed with what Hulu offers. I think they have a great thing going here and it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to succeed. Now that they’re open to the public, hopefully they’ll be able to keep up with the demand because there are already reports that the site is going a little slow today.
Source: Hulu Blog
I have no doubt that if the service becomes a hit in the US, then it will be released worldwide.
@Ashley:
“As mentioned, at this point it’s available only to those living in the United States. This is obviously one of the huge downsides with people Internationally showing interest in the service. So far there’s been no word from Hulu on if or when they intend to make this service available to those in other countries.”
So disappointed about this policy from Hulu’s execs.
Regards,
Omar.-
“Overall, I’ve been impressed with what Hulu offers. I think they have a great thing going here and it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to succeed.”
It sounds very poor compared to the BBC iPlayer which can do the following:
No Ads
Flash Version on all operating systems
Downloadable Versions of programs with NO DRM
Allows 3 party devices to access content e.g. XBMC (Runs very well)
I am so sick of copyright holders insisting on geo-limits on the content! It’s the same deal with mp3 downloads from Amazon.com.
It’s so stupid. Really.
// Lars
Ads are annoying and the video quality isn’t much to write home about but I think it’s an ok service. A lot has not changed since it’s launch. (I was a beta tester)
Definitely. I think their only problem is that right now advertisers are probably paying on a per-view basis, and they refuse to pay for international viewers since some of their advertisers are not international companies. I’m sure that if they could get some international advertisers on board that it would be offered worldwide.
BBC has also been serving up online content for a long time, whereas this is all new to NBC. The ads are literally just seconds long in the videos though (at least in the ones that I watched), and so it’s nothing like what you see on TV.
You thought the ads were annoying? I actually wasn’t bothered by them at all since they were so short.
Sounds exciting, but alas it isn’t here in the UK yet. Anyone know of any sneaky ways to get on it – the proxies I’ve tried haven’t worked.
I haven’t heard anything yet. I’m sure if there were a way, you’d have heard of it already. Hopefully they’ll expand Internationally soon.
@inferno_str1ke
Try downloading hotspot shield. I’m not exactly sure HOW it works, but it does work ok – although a little on the slow side.
I think it uses proxies or something along those lines, which means if a lot of people are using it then it will be slow.