Category Archives: Hulu

Idle Chatter – Hulu and Xbox

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Just a few things I was thinking about over the weekend but then I was sidetracked with a semi-coherent piracy rant.

* I have an Xbox 360 which we use for most of our Netflix and Hulu watching around here (Thanks Rufus!) but I haven’t broken down and bought a Kinect yet. Part of the reason is that we don’t really have the space requirement – you are supposed to be 6-8 feet away from the TV and Kinect but we sit about 3 feet away (an would completely block the front door if 8 feet away – small house).

I do like that Kinect allows you to scroll through movies with your hands or issue voice commands. It has also been reported that the Xbox is likely to get Internet Explorer this year and that it will have Kinect controls a la Minority Report or Iron Man.

Now where is my hovercar?

* Well it is only in the planning/rumor stage but not surprisingly cable companies are tired of customers cutting their cable. We cut it years ago and Hulu and Netflix give us more to watch than we would ever have time for (not to mention my fairly extensive DVD library).

Disney, News Corp, and Comcast (i.e. the bigwigs that own Hulu) are planning to require users to authenticate that they have cable before they can use Hulu. Now there is no timetable on this and it is uncertain whether this would include the paying users of Hulu Plus or just the plain Hulu users.

Personally I find it humorous that apparently Hulu has succeeded too well. I think it is a sign that the cable companies need to adapt or die (much like the record companies failed to do when music went digital) because once customers are used to not having to fork over $70-$100 for cable TV, how will you ever get them back?

On the other hand, how many people who have cut cable TV are shelling out the same money to the same people for their internet connection? Personally I am still thrilled to be able to choose from tens of thousands of movies and shows and watch them any time I want. When I was a kid, I can remember buying 8mm film clips of movies I loved – not the whole movie as that was ludicrously priced, but just the good parts.

 

Help! I am being replaced by Hulu!

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I am proud to wear many, many hats in my family. I make drinks, dinner, bake cookies, and pack lunches. I clean, do dishes, do laundry and make the bed. I am the go-to guy for spider sightings (though in those cases my name is often pronounced “AAAAAAH!”). I am also the guy that gets to answer the question, “who was that guy in that thing with that girl?” I’ve become fairly prescient in such matters, standing ready with the answer before the question is asked.

Hulu has a new feature called Hulu Face Match. All you have to do is hover your mouse pointer over an actor’s face and the show will pause and a pop-up will bring up the actors name, a mini-bio, and a link to their wiki. This is set to roll out to all of Hulu but currently works on episodes of Glee, Lost, The Office, Wilfred and Modern Family.

Netflix: I love the new Netflix app on Xbox 360. When I select How I Met Your Mother from my instant queue, it automagically plays the next episode. After that episode ends, it gives me the option of playing the following episode with one button press. It also doesn’t wait for the episode to finish to bring up this option – it’s available as soon as the credits begin to roll.

In addition – I no longer get that annoying reload screen when Netflix detects a slower/faster bandwidth change. Instead graphic quality is adjusted on the fly. I’m looking forward to these changes being rolled out on the Roku.

Amazon & The Prime Directive & A Little Hulu Too

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I often mention that we have cut the cable here thanks to the cornucopia available on Netflix and Hulu. The biggest exception to that is that I’m addicted to The Walking Dead. I buy each episode from Amazon the day after it airs. Each episode is only $1.99 ($2.99 in HD) and there are only 13 episodes this season so basically you can get the whole season for $26 ($39 for HD) at least six months before the DVD will be released. You do have to have an Amazon-compatible device (like the Roku) to play them on the TV.

Amazon Prime is looking to be a major player in the video world. So far their offerings are nice but they run a very distant third to Netflix and Hulu and most of their movies and shows are duplicated by one or both services. On the other hand if you are an Amazon addict then the Free 2-day shipping may make the choice for you.

Amazon Prime just added a lending library for the Kindle so my wonderful wife may be signing us up shortly. With Amazon releasing a $200 tablet shortly to compete with Apple, I would expect them to sign a bunch more content partners for video over the next few months.

Amazon currently has a FREE trial month of Prime if you haven’t used it yet. It costs $79 a year which breaks down to $6.58 a month so it is fairly inexpensive for the number of benefits you receive.

Hulu just added a bunch of CW shows so I can watch Supernatural on my Roku! Woohoo! For the rest of you, there is Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle, 90210, Ringer, Nikita, Hart of Dixie, Gossip Girl and America’s Next Top Model.

Goodbye DVDs! Hello Huluween!

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Today marked the end of an era for me. I sent back my last Netflix disc (Captain America) and am now going disc-less. Between my personal movie collection, instant Netflix, and Hulu Plus, I have more to watch than I can possibly keep up with.

For a whopping $16, I get all of Netflix’s streaming of movies and previous seasons shows PLUS Hulu’s current shows. How much is your cable bill? Ours was more than three times that and we got a lot less use out of it. Does the instant Netflix/Hulu Plus combo get me everything I want to watch? No – I do miss premium content like Dexter, Game of Thrones, and True Blood but as I mentioned I get way more than I can possibly watch.

Which brings us to the cleverly named Huluween. If the massive list of Netflix horror movies doesn’t fit your bill for Halloween, check out some of Hulu’s offerings. Hulu is free and can be watched on the computer. Hulu Plus is $7.99 a month and allows most of its offerings to be watched on the TV via game console or Roku box.

For Halloween, Hulu has Halloween (1978) as well as Halloween 4 and 5 – none of which are currently available on instant Netflix. They also have Silent Hill, one of my favorite guilty pleasures Horror Express and the premiere of the American Horror Story TV show.

Hulu

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Since this is Thanksgiving week and I’m not feeling well, I thought I’d take the week off from reviewing instant Netflix movies and cover some somewhat related topics instead.

HuluAnyone who knows me knows I love FREE. FREE is everyone’s favorite price point. Instant Netflix is free with almost all Netflix subscriptions and is normally the focus of my blog. Hulu on the other hand is free to all with a decent internet connection. You do have to put up with commercial interruptions but there are less of those than there are on commercial TV and you can start and stop at your convenience.

Hulu’s selection of movies is very limited but what they do have is FREE. They also occasionally get some real gems. Right now they have The Raven and Comedy of Terrors. Both are horror comedies with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff and, more importantly, both are out of print and not available on Netflix at all.

Hulu’s TV show selection on the other hand is amazing. They have almost complete lineups from many but not all of the major networks. The real drawback is that they only carry 6 episodes of a given series at a time. I do usually use that to watch them in marathon format. I let them build up and then watch 4 or 5 episodes at once. This is very helpful for interconnected storyline shows like 24.

There are two shows that we’ve watched on Netflix and Hulu. You can watch all previous seasons of The Office and 30 Rock on Netflix (where they are commercial-free) and then catch up on the current season on Hulu. The current season of Heroes is available on both so we watch it on Netflix where it is both commercial-free and in high definition.