Currently in its testing phase, Hulu Plus let subscribers who shell out $10 a month while willing to sit through ads watch its meager programming on the PlayStation 3, iPhone and other devices. [More]
streaming
Netflix Now Considers Itself A Streaming Company That Happens To Also Mail DVDs
By 10.21.10
Netflix is now an online content streaming company that has a nice little side business in mailing DVDs, according to CEO Reed Hastings. [More]
Hulu Plus Reviewed: Is It Worth Your Money?
By 7.12.10
Staci D. Kramer at mocoNews tested Hulu Plus, the forthcoming “pay us $10 a month to watch commercials” subscription offering from Hulu, and reports that it’s okay-to-disappointing depending on your needs: “Given that I’m a subscription addict, I was fairly sure I’d wind up keeping it after my free review month. One week in, not so much.” [More]
ABC Doubling The Commercials On iPad App, Online Streams
By 6.16.10
If you watch ABC’s shows online or with an iPad, your limited commercial interruptions are about to get a little less limited. So far, most of ABC’s streaming shows contain 5 to 6 ads of 30 seconds each, but mocoNews says one of ABC’s executives just confirmed that the network is going to double that ad load, perhaps leading the way for other networks to do the same. [More]
Come November You Will Be Able To Search Netflix Streaming Content Via Xbox
By 6.15.10
Netflix-streaming Xbox 360 players will have one less reason to be jealous of Roku owners come November. At the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced it will let Netflix users search and add streaming movies and TV shows through the console, bypassing the need to do it the old-fashioned way on a computer. [More]
Netflix Now Offering HD Streaming On PCs And Macs
By 5.13.10
Netflix customers using computers can now get something that Xbox 360 and TiVo users have taken for granted: HD streaming. However, the fact that Netflix is now apparently making most of its HD titles available for high-def computer streaming doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll actually get the highest resolution on your rig. And, no matter how sharp the picture is, some films will still be just as bad. [More]
No More Daily Show Or Colbert Report On Hulu
By 3.2.10
The New York Times is reporting that Viacom plans to pull its Comedy Central programming from Hulu next week because it can’t reach an agreement with the video site on compensation. In a post today on its blog, a Hulu executive notes that Hulu was “unable to secure the rights to extend these shows,” and that they’ll be gone as of 11:59 pm PST next Tuesday, March 9th. After that, you can continue watching them on TheDailyShow.com and ColbertNation.com. [More]
Quick, Someone Develop Adblock For Online TV Commercials
By 2.8.10
The ratings company Nielsen–the company you can blame for bad stunt-casting and stupid plot devices during sweeps week–is going to start rolling in data from online viewings of commercials this fall, which means networks will start using online viewing stats to help sell ads this time next year. What this means: if a network uses the new Nielsen rating system, “shows seen online will have to have the same group of commercials that run on TV,” reports AdAge. [More]
Netflix Streaming Finally Coming To The Wii
By 1.13.10
Those of you with the Wii will no longer be left out of the Netflix streaming party. The service is coming to the console this spring. [More]
Apple Buys Lala
By 12.7.09
Lala, the music streaming/backup service that’s also a reasonably priced mp3 store, has been purchased by Apple. Does this mean Apple may introduce some sort of streaming service in the future? On Lala, you can pay 10 cents per song to stream it as much as you want, or $.99-1.29 to own it outright. At any rate, if you buy from Lala now, you’re buying from Apple. [More]
Streaming Cable Content: For Comcast Subscribers Only
By 10.24.09
Yesterday’s news that Hulu soon plans to start charging for its service actually came fresh on the heels of Comcast’s announcement that it’s about to officially launch online streaming video for subscribers to both their cable TV and Internet services.
Roku Steps Up To The Plate, Becomes Major League Baseball Periscope
By 8.12.09
Roku has swung and seemingly connected a hard technological line drive that’s headed out of the ballpark, having forged a deal with Major League Ball that allows those with an MLB.tv subscription to stream games through the set-top box — previously a Netflix-streaming machine — to Tvs.
Cable Providers Stream Shows Online, Require Subscriber Authentication
By 6.26.09
How are cable providers reacting to the threat posed by online streaming of shows? Forget bandwidth caps for now—how about online access to cable programs, limited to cable subscribers?
New Sirius XM App For iPhone Missing All The Good Stuff
By 6.19.09
The new “premium” (their word) iPhone app from Sirius XM will cost $2.99 a month for customers who aren’t already subscribers. It also doesn’t include Howard Stern, MLB Play-by-Play, NFL Play-by-Play and Sirius Nascar Radio. Sirius blames licensing issues for most of the missing content, but not for the absence of Howard Stern, about which it won’t comment.
Qwest Says It's Throttling Customer's Online Video Streaming, Then Says It's Not
By 5.4.09
Update: It turns out the problem is with OpenDNS, not Qwest. The original post is below.
Sirius Streaming Radio Not Working For Some Customers
By 3.25.09
Sirus-XM charges for access to its Sirius Music Player, but for the past few days, some customers can’t get it to work. One of them in this forum says it only connects after Howard Stern is over, and speculates that some cost-cutting measures have reduced available bandwidth, leading to locked-out customers. In another thread customers are complaining that popular third-party streaming radio services have been sent cease-and-desist letters from Sirius, further limiting access to streaming Sirius programming online. Naturally, Sirius-XM hasn’t responded to customer queries about the issue.
A Glimpse Into The Future Of Broadband With Time Warner Cable
By 3.9.09
Time Warner Cable is running a pilot program in Texas where they’re metering your bandwidth usage and charging extra if you exceed your monthly allotment. This also gives them the opportunity to create a tiered system where you pay more for more bandwidth. Richard is a TWC Texas customer, and his story is a good example of how things work in a tiered, metered system like this. The bottom line: if metered broadband comes to your area, get used to paying extra to take advantage of things like Hulu (which is free) or Netflix video streaming (which you already pay for).
