Whedonesque : Comments on 15747 : Hulu now open to the American public.

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March 12 2008

Hulu now open to the American public. The much hyped corporate site is now open for business and you can watch online Buffy Season One and all of Firefly for free.

Simon | General | 13:06 CET | 20 comments total | tags: firefly, buffy, hulu

It seems to be available only in the U.S.

azhippieinoz | March 12, 15:01 CET

Too bad it's USA only, but I have my dvd's to watch anyway.

Krusher | March 12, 15:02 CET

So, um, anyone know how to get around the US-only restriction? Not for Buffy/Firefly (have the DVDs) but for things like the Simpsons I'd never get on DVD but kinda miss.

[ edited by shelled on 2008-03-12 15:00 ]

shelled | March 12, 17:31 CET

Looks like they just have a few episodes for a lot of shows. I wonder how many commercial interruptions there are.

[edit: nonsensical now!]

[ edited by jcs on 2008-03-12 20:35 ]

jcs | March 12, 17:33 CET

Huh. Just in time, especially after the fall of Stage6. Sweet.

LiLi | March 12, 17:39 CET

I love this thing - I've had it for a few months now and it's really how I got hooked on Bones and Sarah Connor! It's a lot of fun... there are only a few commercial interruptions and they're from 15 seconds to 30 seconds (of the stuff I've watched anyway).

minuet | March 12, 17:57 CET

I was part of its beta phase. I must say I was impressed. I think it ranks as one of the better streaming tv apps available out there. Joost is fancy, but hard to navigate. Hulu keeps it simple, but the player does just fine.

doyn | March 12, 19:16 CET

This seems like one of those things that will become so ingrained in people's lives that they'll wonder how they ever lived without it.

I wonder if it's too much to hope that they put Season 4 episodes of Battlestar up as they come out, for the few of us who are still DVR-less.

RaisedByMongrels | March 12, 20:28 CET

Frakking region restrictions!

Hey Television! People in Canada watch you too!!

Resolute | March 12, 22:06 CET

To me, the most impressive development which the Hulu effort brings is the ability to embed into your own site not just entire programs (which, to be honest, is rather pointless, because most people will just click through to Hulu itself to watch the full episode) but episode clips whose duration and location in the program you choose yourself.

To my knowledge, this is the first time a major entertainment company (or, rather, a group of them) has specifically coded fair use into their online content. That’s rather huge.

theonetruebix | March 12, 22:10 CET

Dutch NOS (national public broadcasting) lets people embed items from their tv news programmes. All the public broadcasters in the Netherlands have been streaming and archiving most of their original programming for almost ten years now. The service is free. They're working on an embeddable player. They've got about 20.000 shows online. Some commercial Dutch broadcasters do it too.

Caroline | March 12, 22:33 CET

Two words: Hotspot Shield.

RobinInSeoul | March 13, 04:31 CET

shelled: "So, um, anyone know how to get around the US-only restriction? Not for Buffy/Firefly (have the DVDs) but for things like the Simpsons I'd never get on DVD but kinda miss."

*whistles and draws toe acrost the dirt.*

I don't know much about nothing, but seems to me I've heerd tell of a thing like this here that's sorta all big-city magic and stuff - it's like IP-bleach, I reckon.

Honestly, ain't never actually used it, but I store some kinds of information obsessively, and I noted this from someone on WHEDONesque not too long ago...

QuoterGal | March 13, 05:12 CET

Grrr. Not in my country.

NimNams | March 13, 06:34 CET

Unlike the DVD's, these episodes appear to be unedited!

Invisible Green | March 13, 08:08 CET

Gee... Buffy? Check. Firefly? Check. Angel. Of course not.

Haunt | March 13, 08:20 CET

Hulu looks all cute and everything, but what's keeping me from signing up is that I don't--I reeealy don't--want to sign up with anything associated with "News Corporation".
Just the idea of it: News Corporation is a...a...what's the word...dichotomy?

AmazonGirl | March 13, 09:01 CET

I don't think News Corporation as a phrase is a mash-up of mutually exclusive terms. Its of course quite another thing if you just don't like them :)

zeitgeist | March 13, 09:05 CET

Oxymoron might have been the word you were looking for, AG. But I think Zg is right that "news" and "corporation" aren't really mutually exclusive; after all, even the hallowed Reuters was set up by a bloke who initially used messenger pigeons to move info about stock prices and then gathered financial information specifically to sell it to investors. News and business are inextricable.

SoddingNancyTribe | March 13, 10:46 CET

...even the hallowed Reuters was set up by a bloke who initially used messenger pigeons to move info about stock prices...

I want a TV show about this. Or, well, okay, set in this era and lets us see this bit.

theonetruebix | March 13, 11:00 CET

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