Friday, December 04, 2009

Hulu Doesn't play well with others.

Currently most high end Blue Ray players can stream content from Netflix, Blockbuster, YouTube and Pandora. Some also offer CinemaNow.

One giant in streaming media web sites is missing Hulu.

On Settopbox devices Sling supports Hulu but Roku does not.

Google Video, Sling.com and Bing.com are the few that seems to have Hulu distribution agreements.  

Boxee, TV.com and Rippol all have been forced to remove Hulu content from their sites and applications.


Roku Channel Store Opens, Hulu Is a No-Show  Nov 22,2009
Pandora, Facebook Photos, Revision3, Mediafly, TWiT, blip.tv, Flickr, FrameChannel, Motionbox and MobileTribe, Netflix, MLB.tv and Amazon channels all now available on the Roku player

In Hulu's note to Rippol, the representative stated that "the only way for a company to legitimately embed our videos the way you do is to enter into a structured distribution relationship with us. However, we are currently entering into these very selectively."


According to Hulu:  Don't embed, Link instead


Bing Brings Hulu, YouTube and MSN Video
Describing it as a "new unified online video destination," Microsoft says Bing Videos will combine results from ABC, YouTube, Hulu and MSN Videos. Of course, such a product calls for a new homepage, which Microsoft has dutifully rolled out for Bing Videos.

Sling.com Isn’t Really A Hulu Competitor, But Does Offer Compelling Reasons To Make It Your Go-To Web Portal
SlingMedia run Sling.com, a video portal similar to Hulu.com but with a few extra benefits.
NBC and Fox content is actually served from Hulu.  Sling and Hulu partnered up to bring that content to Sling users, so you’ll still see the Hulu logo and see the Hulu commercials.


Hulu is streaming using Adobe's Secure RTMP protocol.

Appian.com software can capture Hulu Video.

New Plugin from Google lets you Stream Hulu and Netflix videos with Frontrow 2/09



Understudy is a plug in for Mac OS X interface Front Row. Users can subscribe to multiple feeds and watch from Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, and the BBC iPlayer.



Email from Hulu to Rippol hours after they launched.
We saw that you launched today. We want to notify you that you are using our embeds in violation of our terms of service which state specifically that embeds are for personal, non-commercial use only. As such we will plan to block embedding from your site by 12/4.  Typically we disable embedding immediately but given that you just launched, we want to give you some time to transition. In the place of the embeds, we can offer you is a site map feed that links back to Hulu for video playback and includes several useful pieces of metadata in a feed. It includes video titles, descriptions, thumbnails, video type, duration info, season number, episode number, air date, expiration date, in addition to the video link on Hulu.com. It is updated every few hours: http://www.hulu.com/video_sitemap.index.xml

Rippol responded with they will never put ads in or around Hulu content.
Hulu responded:
Ad placement would be more relevant to the "non-commercial" part of the TOS vs. the "personal" part. While you may not plan to place ads near our content, Rippol is a commercial business in the sense that you plan to make money from the content service you create. Thus our content on your site is being used for commercial purposes, even if it is indirect (i.e. you attract users with Hulu content but only monetize other content).Note we are not singling out Rippol as we have transitioned other premium video aggregators to our site map feed.

From: Hulu Gets Ripped Out Of Rippol
When Hulu was announced in 2007, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said that Hulu would aim to have "ubiquitous distribution." The press release issued at the time said that Hulu "will actively seek agreements with a variety of additional distribution partners." The release also stated that each "distribution partner will feature the site?s content in an embedded player customized with a look and feel consistent with each site, making the offering organic to each destination."

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