Gadget Wisdom

We like Hulu. We think it is a great service, and like any services that offer good content at the wonderfully low-low price of free. However, Hulu is considering adding a premium product…where they could offer things they don’t offer now at a premium.

Some people, despite its free nature, don’t like Hulu. And it hasn’t exactly made a great deal of profit. Mark Cuban wrote today on the subject of Internet Video vs the Cable Company DVR. As the owner of HDNet, a television channel offered on cable, he may be biased though. But the fact that content providers, cable companies, and the other organizations involved just don’t get the possibilities is not one we can argue with.

Cuban makes the case for better cable hardware with better improved features and remote access so you can enjoy your programs on the go. Beyond that, there is also the network DVR, where the videos are stored on a cable company server, instead of in the house. The library of On-Demand programming offered by all carriers continues to increase.

Cuban makes the point that with the current limitations of Internet based video, cable may be the more popular option for the foreseeable future. At least, in that regard, we agree.  If you are paying for something, you should receive good quality service at a good price.

Yesterday, MythTV unveiled its version 0.22 Release Candidate 1. It has been almost two years since version 0.21 was released, and the change brings a great deal of welcome changes.

• Support for the HD-PVR 1212 – The Hauppauge HD-PVR captures analog HD video and digital audio from component video inputs and outputs them over USB using the H264 codec. Since cable companies are encrypting almost all of their content, this device ensures the analog loophole can be exploited. We’ve been using the development version of 0.22 for this reason ever since our cable company shut off our other alternative.
• VDPAU Support – VDPAU is a feature of certain Nvidia graphics cards that permits offload of processor intensive video decoding, include the H264 codec the HD-PVR uses, from the system processor to the graphics card. Thus a slow system can play back HD content without problem.
• The User Interface has been ported to a new standard, MythUI. It allows for inheritance and menu animation, and takes layout and behavior away from the program and puts it under the control of the theme. And surprisingly, that simplifies things.
• Automatic Prioritization, which keeps track of what you watch and uses it to increase the priority of shows watched closer to their recording times over shows that are not.
• A New Channel Scanner – This is a big one, as instead of adding channels when found, it allows you to decide which channels to select, dividing them into New channels, Old Channels, and several different channel types. For example, every time we scan we find a variety of foreign-language channels. Since we don’t speak those languages, it is pointless to add them. This allows us to tell the system to ignore them on scan.
• HDHomeRun Multi-Rec Support – Multi-Rec has been supported under MythTV for DVB devices for a while. This extends it to the popular HDHomeRun, which we also happen to have. Digital TV, both cable and broadcast, allows for multiple subchannels to be embedded on the same channel frequency. Multirec allows two subchannels from the same channel to be recorded at once, instead of discarding all but the one you are watching. It means that if your cable system puts the local NBC and CBS affiliate on the same channel, you can record them simultaneously on the same tuner.
• A score of bug fixes and general handling improvements too numerous to list, but can be checked in the Release Notes.
• MythBrowser now has support for flash and javascript, which means it could be used for Hulu and other Streaming sites(We have yet to test this feature).
• MythNews, the RSS reader, now has podcast support(We have yet to test this feature).
• MythVideo now supports videos stored on the backend. Previously, this required adding the videos as NFS shares. New video metadata grabber scripts are now part of the package, and several other features. The networked option is still in its infancy, and is considered beta till the next version.

There are some additional features that you can review, but essentially, MythTV 0.22 is everything we hoped for after all these months. It can only get better from here. And for US residents, the only possible way this software would not be a great addition to your tech offerings is if the cable company locks down their system so much as to prevent you from using it.

Hulu, the online movie streaming site, released a version of its Desktop software for linux.

Now, we’re Linux people, so we love that a company has released Linux software. But we can’t help but think back to how this affects Boxee. Hulu asked them to remove support, then unveiled their desktop app, and have now extended it to every OS Boxee supports, even going a step further, because they offer both Fedora and Ubuntu options in both 32 and 64 bit, where Boxee offers only Ubuntu 32.

Since we use Fedora 64, we’re pleased by this and will be testing the product and have a review soon. The lack of stability under Fedora and/or 64-bit has limited our use of Boxee, which is the point. We want to use Boxee regularly, but we can’t.

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• Hulu Labs Cooks Up Linux Support For Hulu Desktop, New Publisher Tools (techcrunch.com)

Time to catch up on the latest from these two services.

• Playboy seems to think Hulu is coming to the Roku Video Player. That would certainly please us. But Roku, the creator of the player, has insisted they have not made any public statements regarding Hulu and they don’t know where Playboy gets their information. Roku currently supports Amazon Video on Demand and Netflix, and promised as many as ten new channels by the end of the year but has not yet delivered.
• Netflix appears to not recognize Puerto Rico as part of the United States and is blocking the territory’s use of its Watch Instantly feature, something Hulu once did. It explicitly excludes anything outside of the fifty states and the District of Columbia.
• Hulu has added its own application for playing outside of a browser which works on Windows and Mac(but not Linux). In a ‘nod’ to Boxee, certainly a more developed product, the new product originally advised you to kill Boxee on Macs to avoid conflicts. This has since been changed. Hulu’s Terms of Service state that: “You may not download, install or use the Hulu Software on any device other than a Personal Computer including without limitation digital media receiver devices (such as Apple TV), mobile devices (such as a cell phone device, mobile handheld device or a PDA), network devices or CE devices (collectively “Prohibited Devices”).” It does not prohibit hooking a computer to a TV, but it seems to suggest this is the thing Hulu is trying to forbid, which does not bode well for them.

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In a blog post today, Avner Ronen announced a new Boxee update. In characterizing the issues with Hulu, he said that “the fact that it’s becoming easy to consume Internet video on a TV brings into question many of the industry’s business models that developed before the web.” And this is the center of the problem with Hulu, or rather their content providers. Apparently, the industry gets it, but they need time to adjust to the new reality.

But, since users won’t wait, and are taking matters into their own hands, with hacks to reenable Hulu content in different ways, Boxee has  “decided to enable access to their favorite content using a new built-in RSS reader optimized for video. like IE, Firefox, or Google reader, the RSS reader supports Google Video, Yahoo!, YouTube and feeds from many other websites. while it’s not as attractive or robust as our previous Hulu application, it will additionally support Hulu’s public RSS feeds.”

The new version will also include an Application Store, allowing users to install new applications and plugins from official and third-party repositories, as well as an Auto-Update feature. This is not a stable release…that is set for the Boxee Meetup on March 24th(which we hope to attend, schedule permitting). They are planning to share some concrete plans for the beta there. We hope for them to work on some of the code that makes Boxee(and XBMC) very Ubuntu-centric. Then they can cover the whole Linux market.

The new RSS video feed reader is not specifically designed for Hulu content. By itself, it is a good addition, as it will allow users to add in video content from RSS feeds without writing plugins. Plugins are a superior choice, as they can be customized for the content. But, it is a solution that keeps expanding Boxee’s reach. And it is certainly better than our kludge, which we’ve reenabled, which creates a menu out of the RSS feed, and launches Firefox, sets the video to start and play fullscreen.

In the meantime, at least Boxee is trying on both ends…enabling a Hulu alternative option and continuing to negotiate. We’ll keep an eye on both.

Update: Hulu has blocked the new Boxee browser from accessing the Hulu site. As they put it. “this is a disappointing development since their RSS feeds are publicly available, and our browser, while optimized for a great 10 ft video experience, is no different in how it accesses this content than Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, Opera or any of the other browsers out there.” Either way, Hulu is playing hardball.

Techcrunch reported that developer Paul Yanez, who developed Adobe Air application My Media Player, which we posted about in November, has released a second version of his application. It features 400 TV shows and 208 movies from Hulu, and there is a full-screen mode that apparently works with a remote, as well as Twitter integration. The unfortunate problem is the application becomes disabled every time Hulu makes a major change to its service. Yanez suggests we email them to complain.

Yanez has released his framework and thoughts on building a media player. He wants it integrate with all web video, be easy to use, have a television style feel and be fully integrated with mobile devices.

If you don’t want to try Adobe Air, you can try the application out in a Browser window, by clicking here. Of course, it wasn’t working for us. Maybe we should complain to Hulu. It kept saying Video Unavailable.

We think Hulu should be developing an app like this themselves…or encouraging/hiring Yanez to do so for them. We’ve long complained about a lack of TV-like functionality on Hulu and other sites. And now, under pressure from content providers, these sites are limiting third party development of such software.

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Hulu has announced that its content will no longer be available through Boxee. As they put it…

Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. While we stubbornly believe in this brave new world of media convergence — bumps and all — we are also steadfast in our belief that the best way to achieve our ambitious, never-ending mission of making media easier for users is to work hand in hand with content owners. Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites.

Our mission to make media dramatically easier and more user-focused has not changed and will not change. We will not stop until we achieve it and we are sober in our assessment that we have such a long way to go.

Boxee writes that it has been pleading its case with Hulu’s content partners, but despite the positive feedback, they were unable to change their minds either.

i hope the content owners will realize boxee is their friend. we make it easy for people to access ad-supported TV Shows or use a subscription service like Netflix.  The reality is that if the content owners will not make it easy for users to get their content legally, then people will find other ways.

A lot of comments indicated people would go back to illegally downloading episodes via Bittorrent. Certainly not a good day for the future of television content online. We’re disappointed. We spent all this time promoting Boxee+Hulu as a really good content option. This cuts one of the best features. The XBMC Hulu Plugin has stopped working as well. Back to our wireless mouse and browser hack, we suppose.

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Recently, we commented that one of our top issues with Hulu was aggregation. The website, as well as other video websites are not easy to navigate for someone sitting on their couch, or to control once the video starts Playing.

We know how to hook a remote control up to a computer and to program the computer to Play/Pause etc when the appropriate button is pressed.

But Hulu, even though it does respond to Hotkeys…

• F for FullScreen On/Off toggle
• Space Bar for Play/Pause

It does not integrate well with remotes, mostly because you need the Hulu player to have focus in order for it to respond to these keys, and it often does not, so ones commands are sent to the browser, instead of the Hulu player.

Then, on December 30th, we checked out Woot, the one deal a day site, and saw this…Woot was selling a two-pack of Gyration Gyroscopic Media Center Mouse/Remotes inexpensively.

We ordered a pack of them. But the idea hit us. The Gyration is designed for presentations. There are a variety of presentation mice, designed for giving Powerpoint Presentations and such, that could be used in lieu of a remote, until someone figures out a way to make Hulu more remote friendly.

This seemed like a simple and easy device to add to our arsenal. There is also software that will have your remote control emulate a mouse, however, from our experiments, it is hard to navigate with any precision using them.

We’ll advise how the presentation remote works out for us as a tool, and continue our experiments to figure out how to give Hulu focus automatically so the keyboard hotkeys will work. If they work, they can be linked to a remote control.

The New York Times in a recent article commented on the future of media.

MATTHEW BOWERS has been paying to have HBO piped into his home every month for nearly two decades. He tunes in for the occasional episode of “Entourage” and every couple of months orders a movie on demand. Recently, the whole family watched “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

But when his company laid him off in September, he started to think about the value he was getting out of the premium cable channel. “It’s ridiculous to pay for this service I rarely use when I can get the same stuff online and save a lot of money,” he said. The result? HBO is losing a customer.

DVD Sales are dropping, and crucial car advertising on TV is drying up. And most importantly, TV watchers now have cheaper ways of watching programming, including Netflix, Hulu, and others we’ve mentioned.

Warner Brothers Television, which supplies “The Mentalist” and “Eleventh Hour” to CBS, recently asked the network to pull full-length episodes from its Web site, along with the comedy “Big Bang Theory.” The thinking is that they were potentially too hurtful to old-fashioned syndication sales to television stations down the road.

MGM signed a deal recently with YouTube to provide content, but it doesn’t include any of its most valuable content. They have chosen less popular movies such as Bulletproof Monk and reruns of the original American Gladiators series.

There is certainly potential profit in digital streaming, as seen, but it hardly compares to the profit studios make in television and DVD syndication. None of these sites, however popular, offer a full catalog of options, thus buying or renting physical media is still viable option. You never know when something might be pulled from Hulu or Youtube, thus making it unavailable for impulse viewing.

So, while DVDs might be replaced by Blu-Ray, or other media…while more and more people may choose to stream their videos directly to their televisions, or take advantage of new download and burn yourself services, there will always be a market for owning a copy of a video free and clear, and without entanglements.

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In a previous post, Streaming TV to your Computer, we pointed out our problem with streaming video sites such as Hulu…namely the presentation. When you stream, you have to navigate a website, and the flash player is available in a window, which you have to adjust to full screen.

Full screen itself can be an issue, as users demand better quality video, which sites are starting to provide. However, a TV-like interface is still lacking. Let’s explore a few options we discovered since last time. Reviews on some of these will be forthcoming.

My Media Player is a free interface for the clips and video at Hulu.com. It runs on Adobe Air, versions of which are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux OSes. Personally, we’d prefer an app that runs off of Mozilla Prism, which allows you to run web based applications, ie websites/flash players, minus the accoutrements of a normal web browser, ie bars, buttons, etc, and allows better desktop integration.

Next is Boxee, which is a fork of the popular XBMC project. It includes a closed-source flash player that integrates into the media center software to stream from sites like Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, and more coming. This is certainly more in the direction we are thinking of. They created code to allow you to navigate the sites, and a flash player integrated into their software loads the video and allows you to control it. Unfortunately, Boxee is in private alpha release, by invitation only. We arranged an invitation, but packages are only available for 32-Bit Ubuntu Linux or Mac, neither of which we use, so we’ll be getting an Ubuntu LiveCD and reviewing this in a later post.

In the world of High Def, Engadget HD reports that popular site YouTube already has unofficial support to play back and host 720p clips, as well as surround sound. With many sites already at this point, hope you all have enough bandwidth.

There will be more to come on this issue, which has become something of a pet peeve of ours.

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