Hulu Released for Linux

[dequire]

Internet TV affectionados rejoice - Hulu has been released to Linux to good reviews! Although I do not watch much TV, it's a win for Linux for sure, unless you are a strict FSF-type person maybe (Hulu is proprietary).

If you try it out, post your thoughts. I'm installing it now. It's available for Jaunty (Ubuntu 9.04, Linux Mint 7).

Hulu on Linux looks great

Hulu desktop Linux

- R

[optimize me]

Hulu is crap and so is georetardation.

I'm glad you're happy about it, though.

[dequire]

Hulu is crap and so is georetardation.

I'm glad you're happy about it, though.

As I said, I don't watch much TV - a few shows now and again on a rainy day. So what exactly makes it "crap", since you took the time to respond? And what is geo-retardation? Sounds like a rather generic adjective.

I'm all for popular Windows and Mac apps being ported to Linux, whether I personally use them much (or at all) or not.

- If you were to pick an app to watch television on line, your better choice would be..........?

[optimize me]

So what exactly makes it "crap", since you took the time to respond? And what is geo-retardation? Sounds like a rather generic adjective.

I'm all for popular Windows and Mac apps being ported to Linux, whether I personally use them much (or at all) or not.

- If you were to pick an app to watch television on line, your better choice would be..........?

Georetardation is what makes it crap.

What is georetardation?
{Link to Google search}

It's a filter Hulu employs that renders their offerings inaccessible to anyone located outside the imaginary lines drawn on maps that demarcate the boundaries of the United States. As an American citizen living abroad it sickens me to see how much influence the US's maniacal copyright laws influence foreign governments. US laws reach beyond the US's borders, but it's TV shows can't - if it's on the internet; if you wait an extra week (or sometimes just days) you can see it on broadcast TV just about anywhere with English language programming anyways, which makes georetardation all the more retarded.

Hulu isn't even a content provider in the truest sense of the word, like a news site or a popular blog - they're an NBC subsidiary holding contracts with various other networks that allows them to re-broadcast TV shows online complete with incessant advertising and full force of US copyright law. Meaning, it's perfectly legal (and has been for years) to record your favorite shows off a television with a VCR or DVDR, but if you get something from Hulu and save it to your hard drive you're guilty of copyright infringement, the same as people who rip music or movies and distribute them via bit-torrent.

On the other hand, as a company that offers a service, I suppose they have the right to say who can and can not make use of their service. (No other business in the country can get away with that, btw... Try renting a room to "only native-born Americans" or putting drinking fountains in your restaurant labeled "white" and "colored" and see how that works out.)

Georetardation, coupled with the fact that Hulu is moving to a pay-per-view subscription model (you didn't think that software was all just to watch a TV show, did you?) means that, IMHO, Hulu is crap.

Thanks for asking

I guess to answer your second question, I'll stick with bit-torrent and my native media player. I get a new Simpsons episode every week, whole seasons of old shows I know and love (Law & Order seasons 1-19 I've just finished, and all the old Twilight Zone episodes as well). For news, I do all my reading and searching at sites I know & trust, and watch what video offerings are available when they interest me.

[dequire]

Georetardation, coupled with the fact that Hulu is moving to a pay-per-view subscription model (you didn't think that software was all just to watch a TV show, did you?) means that, IMHO, Hulu is crap.
Thanks for asking

Ahh makes sense now. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Well, I'm just glad that I know how to install MythTV after years of practice. It's my recordings and my television. I will watch it the way I want to.

Interestingly, many Linux users and some organizations are completely against Hulu on Linux, but nothing to do with Georetardatition. It's strictly due to the fast that the software is non Open Source. Though this facet of Hulu would be what would enable it to go to that pay-per-vue model you spoke of.

Interesting. Though or now I will use it to get caught up on missed episodes of The Office from that time my MythTV was down...

[optimize me]

I might even check it out when I get back to the States, but for now I have no choice but to skip it entirely. From everything I've read, Hulu's been around for a couple three four years now, but I've only heard of/been seeing it pop up for about the last year. When I read a news article or a blog post that has Hulu content, I stop reading and send the author/webmaster an email telling them it's rather unfair (and an unwise business model) to restrict their content to 5% of the world's population.

[ShyGuy]

I just installed the application, I was hoping it would solve the slow down I sometimes experience when watching Hulu in Firefox, but it still seems to stutter. The user interface is a little wonky, but the subscriptions feature and adjusting the size of the video window to whatever size you want are nice to have,

I think the performance issues are really a Flash problem though. Maybe when Flash 10.1 comes out.