Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Last night’s town hall debate between presidential candidates was more than just debate #2.  It was the first time Hulu streamed live.  That is right, in addition to the myriad of ways to catch the not so “straight talk,” add Hulu to the list.  Who cares right?

Here is why you need to care:  It is all about money.  Click more to find out.

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After waiting for the oft-delayed device, Slingbox fans can finally be happy again.  The Slingbox PRO--HD has begun shipping.  The PRO-HD is the first Slingbox to offer broadcast of digital signals.  Previous devices converted HD video to SD standards before sending them out to your laptop or whatever device it was being viewed on.  The Slingbox PRO-HD will broadcast up to 1080i.  While it isn’t 1080p, it’s still better than SDTV, and unless you own a very large laptop, 720p is probably fine anyway.

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Hulu first added their HD gallery back towards the end of last year and sadly it has remained pretty empty since. However, I suppose good things come to those who wait, and are patient. Hulu has just added a little extra content to the gallery, the new content comes in the form of 720p quality TV shows. There is now a selection of full length episodes of Heroes, 30 Rock, 24 and The Office.

Hulu has still not added any full length movies, so aside from the few available shows, the overall content is very light. Just some movie clips, a few nature and documentary titles and a few sports episodes.

Hopefully with some time, the HD gallery will fill out a little more. One word of advice though, the extra quality does need some extra computing power, system requirements are a 2.5Mbps Internet connection, as well as an Intel Pentium 4 3GHz processor (or equivalent) on Windows or an Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz or faster processor on a Mac.

Read [Hulu HD]

Hulu has just introduced a series of widgets, and while personally I have never really been a big widget fan, these seem of a little more interest to me.

First off they are not just desktop widgets, although they will work in Vista Gadgets, they are also able to be embedded in sites such as iGoogle or Facebook and they even offer an iframe code so you can place in in a page of your own choosing. With that you could in turn create you own “private” Hulu entrance page.

The new Hulu widgets also offer a wide range of features, everything from the obvious watching of video to being able to view or add to your current queue and even checking the recently added and current most popular videos.

There are four options to choose from which include the Summer Widget, Show and Movie Widget, Picks Widget or the customizable Player Widget. Click the read link below to head on over to Hulu to check out the full range of options, or keep reading to check out the Player Widget in action…

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The Netflix player from Roku seems like it could be in store for some potentially great changes in the future, some of which would force us to remove the “Netflix” from the name. We have already discussed the possibility of other services such as Hulu and YouTube becoming available on the player, however Roku has just posted the source code for the set top box, which makes this possibility a little more of a reality.

In the past VP of Consumer Products for Roku, Tim Twerdahl had already stated that even though they had a deal with Netflix, it was not exclusive and they were still able “to seek out other content providers to put their content on the Roku box.”

That statement lead to the speculation of Roku adding other services to the player, but nothing had been confirmed, and as of now we are still awaiting (and hoping) form something official. While some of the web based video services seem like an obvious choice, there is also some recent speculation that an announcement may be coming from Microsoft or Sony as well.

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Hulu, who have slowly been increasing with viewers have recently landed a few big shows that should give them a nice boost. They have just announced they have added both The Daily Show and also The Colbert Report.

In addition Hulu has plans to add NOVA, Carrier, Scientific American Frontiers and Wired Science which are all PBS shows later this month. Of course, I think its safe to say that John Stewart and Colbert will be the big draw for new viewers.

Via [TechCrunch]

While nothing has been confirmed, there is a possibility that the Roku Netflix Player could be offering content from additional providers in the future. A recent interview conducted by Hot Hardware with the VP of Consumer Products for Roku, Tim Twerdahl gave some interesting clues, but sadly did not go into specifics.

It was however confirmed that their deal with Netflix will allow them “to seek out other content providers to put their content on the Roku box.” While the previously mentioned Hulu and YouTube are just speculation, Tim Twerdahl, the VP of Consumer Products for Roku did state that they are “talking to all big web video providers right now” and they are considering a number of options.

This would be excellent news, well maybe not YouTube as much as Hulu. I have said it before, the Roku Netflix Player is a great device, but is severely limited by the lack of current content available through Netflix. Of course, assuming other content providers were added, does that mean it will then become the Roku Web Video Player?

Via [HackingNetflix]

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]

With Hulu fresh out of the private beta status, there are now talks that they are looking to expand to other platforms, such as mobile phones. Overall it seems like a logical place to go and although Hulu CEO has made some comments they have been pretty generic up to this point. During the recent NAB video production expo, Jason Kilar was quoted as saying that “anything connected to the Internet” would be a possible match in the future, he also briefly mentioned the possibility of cellphones but failed to commit to any specific platform or device.

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Hulu is reportedly working on finally offering their video streaming service to countries other the US. Based on a recent screenshot (seen below) of a drop down box featured on the Hulu website it looks like Canada, the UK, and Australia are going to be first up.

In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Hulu’s CTO implied that they are currently working on making the videos available internationally but was mum on the subject of when it will officially be launched outside the US. It’s been said that the only thing preventing Hulu from streaming videos in other countries are the rights holders. No word yet from Hulu so let’s just wait and see if they ditch the drop down menu and go global for real.

Via [TechCrunch]