Comments on: Hulu launches private beta

By: Steve Safran

Steve Safran — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:07:25 +0000

The Natalie Portman SNL video short remains my favorite. Way better than Chronic, Punched and even, yes, D*ick in a Box.

By: clément

clément — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:17:45 +0000

Damn it ! Videos are available only to viewers inside the US. Fair enough, I understand the need to protect the value of international rights on TV shows (working for a French distribution company myself), but if embedded hulu videos start to show up on every blog and I can’t play any of them, that will really suck.

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:41:24 +0000

Note: Maybe I should’ve looked before posting, but all of the viewer messages about full episodes are comments visible on the show’s video pages and aren’t as easily found on the full messageboards.

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:28:40 +0000

PS and only slightly related) But, I’ve noticed that many of the NBC shows which don’t have full episodes available on the NBC site are also not listed in the Hulu textfile.

I haven’t looked in a few days, but if you go to the show sites on NBC[dot]com, you’ll find that the majority of the top messages on their messageboards are people begging for full episodes. At first, I thought it may be a licensing issue, but I’m under the impression that NBCU owns a huge chunk of the “Law & Order” franchise and though there was a “full episodes” prompt during last week’s “ER” broadcast, it’s still not available on the website. I’m pretty sure there are other Warner shows available for streaming, so I’m not sure why “ER” isn’t available. After all, judging from the messageboards, there is a demand.

Signed;
Guy who is suddenly finding himself streaming 5+ hours each week of first-run shows

By: Don Day

Don Day — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:18:29 +0000

It was reallllly screwed up when I embeded it - but seems better now.

By: Michael Gay

Michael Gay — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:06:52 +0000

PS, send me a beta invite!

By: Michael Gay

Michael Gay — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:06:34 +0000

DC, you weren’t seeing things. It looks like they’ve improved the way the embedded player resizes. Earlier today it wasn’t as functional as it is now. It’s pretty rare to see a company fix things that fast. I’m impressed.

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:03:58 +0000

TR - The first time through, a bar exposed, but it didn’t have a button. It did come up and was visible the second time, but unfortunately I had posted by that time, but still, I also have to give a shout to NBC’s “chapter menus” because after going through the pain of trying to get back to the right spot in some CBS videos over the weekend, I can see where the chapter thing really serves a purpose.

By: TR

TR — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:50:07 +0000

DC…the pause/volume bar has an auto hide function like windows task bar…

By: thedetroitchannel

thedetroitchannel — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:37:42 +0000

you’dathunk goog would have been halved in value with all this hype.

instead it’s up $4.

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:26:59 +0000

OK - The second time through, the pause button was there, but it really wasn’t there the first time through, so something was either buggy with the embed or the player.

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:25:16 +0000

Perhaps it’s a result of LR’s resizing, but I’m not seeing a pause button on the embed. Since this SNL short isn’t very long, it’s not a problem with this particular clip, but I can say from experience that one would be necessary for a complete embedded show and along those same lines, I really hope they aren’t going to lose NBC’s “chapter menu”.

For some reason, I’ve had a bit of a problem with CBS’s player over this pasr weekend and though it may be related more to a issue with my daughter’s IE, as I had to fast-forward to find her place in “Kid’s Nation”, I really learned to appreciate the NBC feature.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:49:26 +0000

Don’t worry, Brink. Hulu won’t last either. Can’t say the same for Jeff Zucker, though.

By: Brink

Brink — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:45:25 +0000

…which is odd, because I don’t know anyone who thinks the CW “green’ image is very good…or will last.

By: Michael Gay

Michael Gay — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:25:26 +0000

The hulu logo sure is similar to the CW green…