Hulu on the iPad?

[Sonist]

Maybe, according to TechCrunch:

"...One rumor I’ve heard from an industry insider is that Hulu is working on an iPad-friendly version of its site that should be ready by the time the iPad hits the market. ...

"Getting Hulu’s videos to play on the iPad is not that big a deal. They could just do what YouTube does and pop open the Quicktime player when a viewer tries to click on a video in their browser. But making people switch applications every time they want to watch a video isn’t the best experience. Hulu could rectify that in two ways: build a custom iPad/iPhone app with its own player, or rewrite its site in Javascript for the iPad/iPhone browser.

Here’s where things get a little tricky. Hulu’s familiar look and feel is all built into its custom Flash player. It would have to try to reproduce that as much as it can using HTML5, and it might not look as good (for more on HTML5 Vs. Flash and the future of mobile apps, read this post). More importantly, all the ads that run on Hulu are designed for Flash, especially interactive ads like overlays. The ad code, business logic, and underlying analytics would all have to be rewritten for a Javascript player. Frankly, this is the biggest hurdle.

So porting Hulu to the iPad is not completely trivial, but Hulu has a large engineering group (including a group in China) more than capable of doing the work. The question is, with more than a billion streams a month and growing via the good ol’ Web and Flash, is it worth it to put engineering resources just for the iPad. At this point, the iPad needs Hulu more than Hulu needs the iPad."

I personally would be surprised, and also doubt Apple would allow the Hulu app in its store, but there is always Cydia....

[dmaul1114]

Yeah seems like they could put out a hulu app like they have with Youtube.

But seems like allowing that will kill sales/rentals of TV shows in iTunes. But maybe those sales already suck so they don't care? I can't imagine they sell a lot of downloads for shows freely available on Hulu, the network sites etc. It's not like they're hidden and people aren't aware of the free streaming since the networks advertise the availability of shows on their website pretty often.

[Trubu]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I personally would be surprised, and also doubt Apple would allow the Hulu app in its store, but there is always Cydia....

Apple has approved plenty of other apps that stream video, including TV.com (the CBS equivalent of Hulu). I'd be surprised if they didn't approve a Hulu app. Apple is a lot more interested in selling hardware than content - iTunes isn't a big profit center for them.

[kjk]

I hope Hulu goes with the full site move to HTML5/.h264...it would also work great with a lot of other mobile devices.

Edit: and of course, wouldn't need to go thru the App Store.

I think a bigger demand for Hulu though is for it to go beyond just the US.

[nikkie]

I hope they do set it up with HTML5.

I just came up with one semi-solution though: if you have playon installed on your home computer, you can watch hulu on your ipad while at home at least. Not sure how much that buys anyone sadly.

[Yoshi 1080]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

I can't imagine they sell a lot of downloads for shows freely available on Hulu, the network sites etc. It's not like they're hidden and people aren't aware of the free streaming since the networks advertise the availability of shows on their website pretty often.

1. From what I've seen, image quality on Hulu is pretty average.
2. Hulu is more restricted than a typical American airport after 9/11 - for non-US citizens it is way easier to buy in the US iTunes Store than to view Hulu content.
3. iTunes is more of a competitor to DVD sales than it is to streaming.

I think there is some overlap between these two services, but in the end they target different markets. Plus, Apple has allowed streaming services like Rhapsody (music) in the past, so I don't see any reason for them to ban Hulu.

I really hope, though, that Hulu will switch to HTML5 rather than to develop an iPad app.

[Sonist]

Guys, not to start another flame war, but seriously, why would any sane business abandon a good, robust, extremely widely supported framework and spend a fortune to move to a randomly supported, draft-stage architecture?

Again, let me quote from the HTML5 page:

"Implementors should be aware that this specification is not stable. Implementors who are not taking part in the discussions are likely to find the specification changing out from under them in incompatible ways."

Really, Flash gives Hulu access to an already huge market. Flash supports H.264, just like HTML5, including hardware support. Also, Hulu is entirely ad supported, and the ads are all Flash.

BTW, the Hulu geographic restrictions are content-provider imposed, similarly to the way the BBC stream is not available in the US.

Oh, and the quality of Hulu video is actually perfectly watchable on a 60" plasma. Not BR, but perfectly watchable. The quality is maybe a bit better than a SD cable channel.

Between Hulu and Netflix streaming from my HTPC, I very, very rarely watch TV anymore.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Guys, not to start another flame war, but seriously, why would any sane business abandon a good, robust, extremely widely supported framework and spend a fortune to move to a randomly supported, draft-stage architecture?

Again, let me quote from the HTML5 page:

"Implementors should be aware that this specification is not stable. Implementors who are not taking part in the discussions are likely to find the specification changing out from under them in incompatible ways."

Really, Flash gives Hulu access to an already huge market. Flash supports H.264, just like HTML5, including hardware support. Also, Hulu is entirely ad supported, and the ads are all Flash.

BTW, the Hulu geographic restrictions are content-provider imposed, similarly to the way the BBC stream is not available in the US.

Oh, and the quality of Hulu video is actually perfectly watchable on a 60" plasma. Not BR, but perfectly watchable. The quality is maybe a bit better than a SD cable channel.

Between Hulu and Netflix streaming from my HTPC, I very, very rarely watch TV anymore.

I can stream Hulu via VPN (since I do not live in the US) to a 52" screen and it still looks real good. I can stream Hulu to my phone -- when my wife wants to watch something else -- and it still is acceptable.

The real question is, can anything be done about it from the user side? Since I have passed on my iphone to my wife I have not kept on top of the latest hacks for the iphone. Are there any new ways to run flash on a jailbroken iPhone or are there any non-Apple-certified server based browsers that could handle it on the iPhone? If so, it could be done on the iPad.

[kjk]

Good question. Why is Google making YouTube HTML5?

Originally Posted by Sonist

Guys, not to start another flame war, but seriously, why would any sane business abandon a good, robust, extremely widely supported framework and spend a fortune to move to a randomly supported, draft-stage architecture?

Again, let me quote from the HTML5 page:

"Implementors should be aware that this specification is not stable. Implementors who are not taking part in the discussions are likely to find the specification changing out from under them in incompatible ways."

Really, Flash gives Hulu access to an already huge market. Flash supports H.264, just like HTML5, including hardware support. Also, Hulu is entirely ad supported, and the ads are all Flash.

BTW, the Hulu geographic restrictions are content-provider imposed, similarly to the way the BBC stream is not available in the US.

Oh, and the quality of Hulu video is actually perfectly watchable on a 60" plasma. Not BR, but perfectly watchable. The quality is maybe a bit better than a SD cable channel.

Between Hulu and Netflix streaming from my HTPC, I very, very rarely watch TV anymore.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by kjk

Good question. Why is Google making YouTube HTML5?

Because they probably geared up for it a while back, way before Jobs called Google's "Do No Evil" bullshit.

And because for video-only sites it matters less - youtube is basically a generic (rather ugly) page with video thumbnails. Plus, now Flash supports H.264 with hardware acceleration.

[scottjl]

The iPad is Apple's device and Apple doesn't have to cater to Hulu. Flash is not an accepted W3C (or any standards body for that matter) standard. H.264 is a recognized and accepted standard and HTML5 is on the way to becoming one. Like it or not, these are the facts as they stand today.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by scottjl

The iPad is Apple's device and Apple doesn't have to cater to Hulu. Flash is not an accepted W3C (or any standards body for that matter) standard. H.264 is a recognized and accepted standard and HTML5 is on the way to becoming one. Like it or not, these are the facts as they stand today.

scottjl, may I humbly point out, that while neither Flash, nor HTML5 are an adopted "standard," by your definition, at least Flash is virtually universally supported, across every major browser and platform. HTML5 is not.

Like it or not, these are the facts as they stand today.

[scottjl]

Actually, if you want to look at it, Flash isn't supported natively by any browser. It's a 3rd party plugin that browsers accept. Had Adobe actually tried to get it approved by a standards body we might not be having this discussion today, but Adobe didn't, they want to maintain control and rights to it for themselves. So when the internet moves on with new things like HTML5, Flash will go the way of Gopher sites.

[kjk]

I did find one part of that article interesting-Hulu's content is already in .h264. Someone there was definitely thinking of the future.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by kjk

I did find one part of that article interesting-Hulu's content is already in .h264. Someone there was definitely thinking of the future.

From Hulu:

"Video quality is very important to us. We adjust the video bitrate between 480Kbps and 700Kbps depending on your bandwidth. Leveraging the H.264 capability of the new Flash Player, we also now offer a portion of our content in a higher resolution 1,000Kbps stream. Videos available in this format will display with a 480p Hi Res button on the lower right-hand side of the player. If you have sufficient bandwidth and Flash Player 10.0.22, click the button to view this high resolution stream. "