[709]

I've been playing around with Hulu now that it went live and all today, and you know what? I doesn't fucking suck the way I was absolutely sure it would. Go figure.

Sure, BSG isn't up completely (except for the last few episodes of S3) and most of the things I might be interested in are buried within menus, but easily reachable and fairly well thought out as well. Hrrumph.

I was looking for all kinds of ways to hate Hulu...and besides the fact their encoding team needs some lessons in compression and/or some respective fucking smacks to their heads I'm finding very few flaws. Color me shocked.

The ads aren't nearly as intrusive as I imagined, and in some cases they offer an option of 'first sit though this thing for 2 minutes and we'll bybass the ads'. Seriously? Hell yeah. I'll go downstairs and open a bottle of wine, thank you very much.

The advertising is omnipresent though. Even in 'theatre mode' the ads are still bright and shiny. And you absolutely cant pause or click anywhere else while the ad is playing.

But, minor annoyances aside, I've found the service to be quite amicable.

My biggest grief is with the compressionists. One episode of Firefly (yes, I own the DVD set, but I thought I'd compare the service to something I'm intimately familiar with) was smooth all the way through, and the next was a herky-jerky mess. I have to say though, the visual quality was top notch on Firefly, but oddly enough I tried a few of the newer sitcoms and the visuals looked like shit.

Maybe they expect more people are viewing the newer stuff at any given time so they encode it at a lower bit rate? I don't know, but it almost turned me off to the whole site until I found that Firefly was encoded so well. I haven't watched a movie yet, so maybe others can comment on the quality of those.

All in all it seems alright. My only concern is if they put a full/half season up to watch to rope people in and then cut it off midway to then offer the DVD box set. You know, thereby sucking in the customers that may have missed a few episodes.

Gah. Who am I kidding?

Watch it while you can.

[torifile]

I tried it. It doesn't work in full screen in Vista (using FF). Does it work any better on the Mac? I'd check, but I'm using bootcamp right now.

[Brave Ulysses]

ABC.com actually has greatly impressed me. Their dynamic HD streaming is amazing and they have the entire seasons of their best shows in HD... for free.

I still would rather watch an advertisement every 7-14 mins than pay 2 bucks for an episode I'll watch maybe once or twice.

[709]

Full-screen was choppy, to be sure, but not as egregious as I expected it to be. It's not anywhere near HD...nor SD for that matter...but it's 'reasonable'. Today, at least.

[torifile]

They've got 3 full seasons of arrested development. That's something. But the quality is pretty much ass. Like YouTube with stuff worth watching.

I don't really care who puts the stuff out there as long as I'm able to watch it. Commercials never bother me much. Everyone's gotta pay the bills.

[k squared]

They also have It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Awesome

[psmith2.0]

My sister e-mailed me the link over the weekend.

I've been reliving my 70's-based childhood: "Starsky & Hutch", "S.W.A.T.", "The Rockford Files", "Emergency", etc. I loved watching those shows back then, and it's a hoot to see the opening credits and hear those theme songs again, 30+(!) years on...

And they've got "The Pretender", with the too-sexy-for-words Miss Parker.

My goodness.

[PKIDelirium]

I just got Emergency! Season 1 DVD set the other day. $30/season at Sam's Club. I'm going to build up through the series and get the rest over this year, they have four seasons out so far of I believe six total.

I want the Pretender seasons too, but they're still pricey.

[psmith2.0]

I watched "Emergency" as a little boy, and to this day I can recall two particular rescues/scenarios (I just saw them once, but somehow they stuck with me):

- An amusement park rescue on a parachute tower type of ride (people get into a "cage", get lifted up and then gently glide back down (not a "free-fall" type of ride). But the ride cage got stuck at the top with people trapped, and they had to go up and deal with it.

- They go to a guy's apartment and apparently he has a spitting cobra for a pet(?) and the thing shoots DeSoto in the eyes with its venom. I assume the owner had been bitten because he was lying on the floor upon their arrival.

Seems they were in the same episode!



What kind of royal dipshit keeps a spitting cobra in their apartment, even in a glass cage?



Makes for good TV though!

[709]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 And they've got "The Pretender", with the too-sexy-for-words Miss Parker. My goodness.

Oh yes. Very Diana Rigg. She looks good as a blonde too:




I liked The Pretender enough to watch it once in a while, but I couldn't stand that actor that played Jarod. It could've been 10 times better with a different lead guy.

[Swox]

Damnit, can't watch anything in Canada. There go my plans for the evening...

[PKIDelirium]

I got hooked on Emergency back in like 1999 or so when TV Land started carrying it. I watched it nonstop until they stopped airing it after a few years. I was surprised how much I still remembered from it when I started watching season 1 yesterday.

Season 1 is only 11 episodes though. I'll probably get Season 2 not too long after I finish this set.

[Yontsey]

Originally Posted by k squared They also have It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Awesome

Agreed. I just watched "Dee dates a retarded person". I can never pass up an opportunity to see Day Man.

Now I'm watching The Big Lebowski. My production is going to go waaaaay down at work. Good thing I'm the boss. Bad thing, I'm the main employee and worker too, haha.

[blakbyrd]

Originally Posted by 709

*Takes a old shower*

[PKIDelirium]

Originally Posted by blakbyrd *Takes a old shower*

Hope it's not moldy.

[Mac+]

Oh man... Hill Street Blues is on there - but not viewable in my country.
The DVDs haven't even been released over here either and it looks like they only released 2 seasons out of the 7 so far. I hope my patience for this TV show is rewarded one day with a complete series release, but it looks doubtful.

[PKIDelirium]

The price for HSB here is great, I saw Season 1 at Sam's Club for $20.

[torifile]

I'm in Japan right now. It would have been nice to be able to watch something on hulu but I can't. Stupid fucking country restrictions. When will media companies learn that region locking is stupid? I got what I wanted off bittorrent in about 30 minutes. HD quality. Fuck 'em.

[k squared]

Originally Posted by torifile I'm in Japan right now. It would have been nice to be able to watch something on hulu but I can't. Stupid fucking country restrictions. When will media companies learn that region locking is stupid? I got what I wanted off bittorrent in about 30 minutes. HD quality. Fuck 'em.

How does it do this? By IP tracking? I agree, absolutely silly. Does CBS/NBC/ABC online viewing of recent episodes work this way as well?

Its a good videos site, i daily visits it.

[Mac+]

Originally Posted by PKIDelirium The price for HSB here is great, I saw Season 1 at Sam's Club for $20.

Yeah, I've seen HSB cheaply - even on the iTS in the US, but so far they have only released 2 out of the 7 seasons and they have not been released for the Australian market yet, which is beginning to look more unlikely as time passes.

I agree with torifile - region encoding sucks the big one.

[Meli]

So far the site has worked great. There's practically no loading . But the one thing that was really annoying during a movie was the sporadic placement of ads. There were two instances where ads came within less than a minute of each other . I wonder if the ad placements are random?

[Fahrenheit]

Damn you Americans!