Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Hulu.com has seen growing trends in its viewership, so much so that News Corp and NBC Universal have decided to distribute its service to seven new sites. Hulu users watched a total of 63.2 million videos on its website last April and the average Hulu user spends around 129.3 minutes per month. Because of the enormous usage of the site, Hulu is set to distribute its videos on TV.com, TVGuide.com, Break.com and Zap2it.com.

Hulu had been reported to exceed the level of usage of all US television network websites in its first month after the official site launching – as stated in the VideoCensus data by ACNielsen.

Although Google’s YouTube remain to be the unbeatable site for online videos, Hulu has made remarkable milestones as a competitor. Major advertisers like McDonalds and Bank of America have already been attracted by the video website. Now that Hulu is beginning to further distribute its service, it should definitely see continued increase in its viewership.

Read [Reuters]

The case of the missing NBC video on Windows Vista Media Center PC’s in DVR mode reminds me of Bill Murray’s classic line from “Ghostbusters.” When tempted by a demonically-possessed Sigourney Weaver, Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman says, “I make it a rule never to get involved with possessed people.”

After she nuzzles his neck, he sheepishly adds, “Actually it’s more of a guideline than a rule.”

CNET News reported that Vista PC’s won’t record certain NBC prime-time programming. (We’ll ignore the larger question for now as to why someone would actually want to record “American Gladiators.") When its reporter questioned Microsoft, the software company released a statement saying that it is honoring broadcast flags - technology that disables attempts at recording - as set forth by Federal Communications Commission “rules.” But those “rules” have no force of law behind them. The networks wanted them a couple of years ago, but federal courts shot them down. Optional installation? Sure. But there’s nothing mandated by governmental agency or Congress.

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Fresh off the official announcement we have some early reviews beginning to show up for the Netflix set-top box player from Roku. The new player will allow Netflix users with the $8.95 monthly plan (or higher) have access to (currently) 10,000 available titles for instant viewing from just about any television. While the player does have some limitations, it seems to have gotten a fairly good set of reviews, which just makes me look forward to mine arriving.

Overall it seems that most of these review were fairly similar. For the most part the comments were positive, referring to an easy initial setup and nice feature which offers automatic upgrades as they come available. The price, at $99.95 was also right on, especially considering those who are already Netflix customers will not have any additional expense, assuming they have an $8.95 a month (or higher) plan. It seems that while this may offer other devices such as they AppleTV or Vudu some competition, the lack of HD quality and current movie selection is going to hold it back. Assuming the movie selection improves over time, it could become more of a power player in the future. Other items that were mentioned was that the movie management is still done on the familiar Netflix website, you add movies to your queue the same way you always have and the box will then add them to your playlist. One potential drawback will be that the movies are streaming and with a slower connection, this could cause some issues, it was also noted in some of the reviews that because the movies were indeed streaming that it made fast-forwarding and rewinding less than ideal.

Let’s see what they had to say:

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I am sure you, like me, require a change in undergarments as a result of the surprise announcement today of the Roku set top box for Netflix.  This little dynamo lets you stream movies from Netflix’s instant line up and watch them from the comfort of your couch.  This will be enough to spur me to start my Netflix back up again.  But, there is a catch.

Get this image out of your head: you won’t be sitting on your catch browsing through Netflix trying to figure out what to watch.  That is, unless you also have a laptop or other device you can move movies into your instant queue so you can view them with the box.  Yes, the box only pulls from a list you have to set up prior on a computer. 

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Roku has just released the first set-top box for Netflix, allowing users to avoid the wait and have some instant access to the movie of their choosing. Unfortunately the box does not offer access to the complete Netflix library, however it still does have over 10,000 available as of now. The Roku Netflix set-top box comes in a quiet and fanless design that is about the size of just a few DVD movie cases.

The Netflix player also offers a wide variety of connectivity to include a RCA, S-video, component video, HDMI and optical audio connections. The device also offers both a wired Ethernet port as well as wireless compatibility. Any customers with a Netflix plan of $8.95 or higher will be able to get unlimited viewing of those available titles. As a service that can be used with just about any television, offers a large movie selection and costs less than $10 bucks a month, it seems that the AppleTV and Vudu have just gotten a solid competitor. The Netflix player is currently available and retailing for $99.99.

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Say it isn’t so.  Please.  Rumors are circulating that Best Buy is considering buying out Netflix according to AlleyInsider.  Feeding into the rumor pushed the stock up 6% in Friday trading.  Interesting.

It is easy to see why Best Buy might want to get a hold of the Netflix business: it is well position (or at least positioned) to make a play for the next advancement in the home entertainment.  Most see direct downloading via the internet as the next wave and Netflix is in the mix with some help from LG.

So why Best Buy?  Best Buy could sell content at the point consumers purchase a DVD player.  Best Buy could reduce customer acquisition costs for Netflix while improving their market position by selling a complete package.  It would be an impressive move, potentially.

But at what cost to Netflix?  Surely the ace customer service one gets at Best Buy (speaking from personal experience only here) would drag down the fun, red enveloped company I’ve come to enjoy and think of as “fun”.  Netflix has a good thing going, it would be a shame for the new big blue to bring them down.

What do you think?  Could Best Buy bring anything good to Netflix?

Read [AlleyInsider]

Dish Network recently won enough licenses to cover the entire US, except for New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Boston – and the industry has been abuzz with speculation as to what the satellite TV company plans to do with it. Now, Dish has disclosed that it would use the licenses to build a mobile TV service – but they’re in no hurry.  Picking the right technology, the right business model, and the right partner will be critical in Dish Network’s plans. Building a mobile TV network would be no joke – the company would likely spend between $500 million to $2 billion. Major decisions would take time and deliberation.

Vice Chairman Carl Vogel confirmed:

“We’re a long, long, long way from building anything out. We’re a long, long, long way from deciding who our partners will be and when, but we do think it is a valuable piece of spectrum that gives us an opportunity to have numerous strategic discussions that will provide an asset that’s additive to the business we already have.”

While a “long, long” time is certainly not what consumers want to hear, its still nice to know that it is in the works.

Via [mocoNews]

Although we have already seen the migration of YouTube video content into our living room TV. HP wants to up the notch a step higher by bringing you a better video watching experience with its HP MediaSmart Products that include the MediaSmart Connect digital media receiver and the high-definition MediaSmart TV.

Yes dear readers, with this tie-up between HP and YouTube, you will be able to watch and share full-screen videos on your HDTVs. You can also create multiple playlists from anywhere you watch TV. Even sweeter is the fact that just like the old habit of slacking on your couches and watching your favorite TV shows from morning till dawn, you can do all these things using your HDTVs remote control,. Only this time, you have a full YouTube video database to watch, which if you would calculate, could probably last you a lifetime to finish watching.

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Look who’s playing catch up with Apple’s iTunes?  Microsoft has confirmed the rumors that it will start selling TV shows in its Zune Marketplace, possibly to compete with the recently announced iTunes movie download offerings. For starters, Microsoft has sealed a deal with NBC, which incidentally is coming off the recent break-up with Apple’s iTunes.

Although Microsoft’s move maybe a little bit late, lagging behind Apple’s iTunes which started selling TV shows two years ago, Microsoft is confident that its Zune Marketplace will be able to make some headway over the iTunes especially now that one of iTunes biggest content providers has decided to move over to the Zune Marketplace. NBC and Apple had previously disagreed over pricing which caused NBC to stop offering their content in iTunes. 

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Although Apple started offering customers movie rentals through iTunes back in January, some customers have found the service less than appealing because most of the movie titles, both from major film studios and independently produced titles, took much longer to be released as compared to DVD’s. Normally these new titles are released in iTunes 30-days after their DVD release. But Apple is pretty determined to get a sizeable share of the movie download market and possibly do what it was able to do with music downloads. Thus, it has officially announced that new movie releases can now be downloaded from iTunes on the same day that their DVD counterpart.

So, now we are talking. With the new service, iTunes customers would have access to new releases and catalog titles from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount and more. Customers can purchase new releases for $14.99 and most catalog titles for $9.99.

To kick off this service, iTunes has announced some new titles available for purchase this week, coming from its collection of around 1,500 high-quality films. These new titles include recently released in DVD formats - Juno, Cloverfield, I Am Legend and more.

Read [Apple]