Hulu Plus. What are your thoughts?

[freebird73717]

What do you think? Would you be willing to pay $8.00 a month for what they are offering? I'll personally stick with netflix streaming and dvds.

[16mmJunkie]

Yeah netflix is still alot better.

[usually_quiet]

No, but I wouldn't pay to use another similar service either. Streaming from a website is not a good way for me to watch TV. I can do it, but often my Internet connection is not good enough for consistently smooth playback.

[jagabo]

Most of what I want to watch on Hulu is in the free version (or available on Netflix or elsewhere) which I can watch on TV using PlayOn (running on my server) and my WDTV Live.

I heard Hulu Plus was considering dropping their price to $5 a month. I guess they're trying $8 first.

[sum_guy]

I activated my 1 week free trial on both my Roku players, I have a good 8-10 mbs internet connection, playback is in 720p on both the ethernet Roku and my wireless Roku. The playback is smooth and I can use my laptop over the wireless lan while watching. There are no issues or problems that I've encountered, it's been 24 hours since I activated, I have the option to cancel anytime. The navigation screens are well laid out but could be a little difficult to read for small tv's i.e. less than say 24" diag. size. Just sit closer if your tv is that small? Loading times from selection to playback are just as quick as Netflix or Amazon vod. The content selection is probably going to grow as or if people adopt it. I haven't made a decision to keep this channel on my Roku's yet but it looks very good, sounds very good, and works just fine.

[jagabo]

I activated my 1 week free trial on both my Roku players, I have a good 8-10 mbs internet connection, playback is in 720p on both the ethernet Roku and my wireless Roku. The playback is smooth

Can you watch two shows at the same time with a single $8/mo account? Or is the account tied to a particular device?

[sum_guy]

Two shows at the same time are no problem. It will depend on your bandwidth, the players are identified by different numbers.

Just to be sure, I just tried it now, I have Glee on in the living room and Modern Family on in the bedroom, both are in 720p with no buffering issues.

I wouldn't be caught dead watching either of these shows except for testing purposes!

[freebird73717]

.......I have Glee on in the living room and Modern Family on in the bedroom, both are in 720p with no buffering issues.

I wouldn't be caught dead watching either of these shows except for testing purposes!

Oh admit it. Your a gleek. It's okay to say so....

[manono]

Hey! I like Modern Family. Glee, not at all.

[edDV]

What do you think? Would you be willing to pay $8.00 a month for what they are offering? I'll personally stick with netflix streaming and dvds.

Netflix streaming consists of older DVD releases.

Hulu is near current free TV episodes.

Seems like two different things to me.

[freebird73717]

Not talking about their free content. Talking about their new Hulu Plus subscription.

[Seeker47]

I activated my 1 week free trial on both my Roku players, I have a good 8-10 mbs internet connection, playback is in 720p on both the ethernet Roku and my wireless Roku. The playback is smooth and I can use my laptop over the wireless lan while watching.

I'm wondering whether my Netflix streaming is 720p or better ? (How would you tell, other than just trying to eyeball it ?) Performance has mostly been good, in terms of smooth playback or glitches, although my sampling of it is still way too modest to form any major conclusions. My wireless setup is built around a Linksys G router. (There are some 'N' pieces, but that router's speed is going to be what governs, correct ?) TWC claims that all you need for good streaming is a speed of 5.

I have watched a few 1080p VOD movies from DirecTV, and they looked great, so the network performance must have been pretty good those evenings . . . notwithstanding Redwudz's warnings about hi-def video being largely unsuitable for streaming. [Oh, wait a minute -- strike that. I forgot that DirecTV downloads that stuff to your DVR hard drive before it will play, so that probably does not even count as streaming ! It's not a real-time deal.]

So far, there has been one case here when the Netflix streaming crapped out early with an error message, and a couple other movies had minor glitches. The rest has been rather good.
I've been curious to hear reports about the Roku.

Haven't tried major internet computer activity or downloads while streaming yet, so I can't really comment on that.

[edDV]

Netflix (Akimai or Level 3 Limelight) adapts to your internet connection speed. In most cases the quality will be inferior to cable or avc satellite. I haven't seen their best speed yet. Will have to wait for a trade show because there is no FiOS where I live.

[sum_guy]

If the quality of programming, the low cost, and the isp bandwidth continues to grow, I can see a time when I will ditch my satelite tv.

Cable isn't an option for me, and neither is FIOS, I live on a farm 35 miles from Philadelphia PA, and even though I live in a giagantic metro area, the house sits 1/2 mile from the wires out at the road, Comcast will hook me up for about $ 2 dollars a foot to run the wire in. FIOS isn't an option at all, the road I live on has only 5 residences, they told me "we have no intention of running fiber optic down your street...sorry.

I currently have Dishnetwork and to be honest, they have been better to me the Directv, I HAD Directv for 7 years, then made arrangements for them to change my dish and receiver so I could get HD, the installer showed up at 10 am (I asked for noon or later and had been told not before noon) I explained this was important because I would take a half day of vacation from work to meet him. Directv gave me his cell number and I called him at noon, asked nicely what his ETA was, he told me "screw you I was there at 10 and nobody was around", I asked him to read the work order out loud to me. He would not, I disconnected the call. So, I call Directv, they tell me "we'll find out what happened", 2 hours go by, I get a call back from Directv "the installer said he was there at noon but nobody was around, would you like to reschedule, I say half heartadly, yes, they tell me he can be back out in 6 weeks. I said fine, the nanosecond I hung up I called Dishnetwork who had an installer come out in 2 hours on the SAME DAY and hook it all up. I never looked back. When the Directv installer showed up in 6 weeks, he left the meanest note on my door, something about "you should let people know if your pitbulls are loose on the property", and he left me a message on my cell (same guy, same cell number) haha a-hole!

I will stick with Dishnetwork and my Roku's and my computers.