TiVo States Interest In Hulu Integration

[Airhead315]

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_13517163?nclick_check=1

This is great news. While this is not a statement saying Tivo is working with Hulu on providing this service it doesnt indicate that Tivo is trying to be one of the first to provide this service if/when Hulu decides to allow straight to TV service.

[mchasal]

This is also potentially good news on the Hulu front: http://lifehacker.com/5377876/hulu-desktop-brings-remote+controlled-streaming-to-linux

Linux version of Hulu desktop.

[ZeoTiVo]

TiVo is also interested in downloading movies the day they screen in theaters - does not mean it will happen.

If TiVo CEO feels he has to make a public statemnet about Hulu needing to show interest in being on the TV screen - that means there are no actual talks and Hulu is still in the business model of only being on the PC screen and nothing else.
HulU has spent resources to actively shut down every other avenue of seeing Hulu. They even shut down my seeing it through a flash browser on my smartphone.
Hulu on TiVo is still the long shot it has been for sometime. :o

So plug those PCs (Windows, MAc and now Linux) up to the TV for Hulu.

[aaronwt]

I use PLAYON with my PC, then I can watch Hulu from my PS3 or 360 on my TV.

Without that option I would not use Hulu.

[Adam1115]

/Subscribe

:up:

[pkscout]

I hope this happens as well. Right now I do OTA for HD and buy a few cable shows off Amazon. The one thing I use Hulu for (on my laptop) is the Daily Show/Colbert Report. It'd be nice to get those on my TiVo again.

I saw somewhere that Murdock was hinting that Hulu might go subscription based. I guess that wouldn't necessarily affect TiVo integration, as they already do something similar with Netflix and Rhapsody (i.e. you have to have a subscription to use the service on your TiVo).

[rainwater]

TiVo is also interested in downloading movies the day they screen in theaters - does not mean it will happen.

If TiVo CEO feels he has to make a public statemnet about Hulu needing to show interest in being on the TV screen - that means there are no actual talks and Hulu is still in the business model of only being on the PC screen and nothing else.
HulU has spent resources to actively shut down every other avenue of seeing Hulu. They even shut down my seeing it through a flash browser on my smartphone.
Hulu on TiVo is still the long shot it has been for sometime. :o

So plug those PCs (Windows, MAc and now Linux) up to the TV for Hulu.

But Hulu would sing a different tune if they made a deal with someone like TiVo and were allowed to maintain control. Plus, TiVo's analytics could prove useful to Hulu and it's ability to sell to it's advertising partners.

[CuriousMark]

But Hulu would sing a different tune if they made a deal with someone like TiVo and were allowed to maintain control. Plus, TiVo's analytics could prove useful to Hulu and it's ability to sell to it's advertising partners.

I think maintaining control means unskippable commercials. Do TiVo and Hulu want to accept the howls of complaint they will get? Do people want it on TiVo badly enough to accept forced commercial consumption? These are huge questions.

Is it time for a survey?

[ldconfig]

I can live with the small number of commercials on hulu because its free ... now on content i pay for i will skip the dog poo poo out of it :)
This is great news my fingers are crossed hulu is the killer feature for Tivo.
ld

[dylanemcgregor]

I use PLAYON with my PC, then I can watch Hulu from my PS3 or 360 on my TV.

Without that option I would not use Hulu.

Yep.

[davidwadesmith]

I've been playing with Hulu via PlayOn for a little while now too. I keep wondering how difficult it would be to build a uPnP HME client for Tivo. Anyone out there have any idea?

[mchasal]

I think maintaining control means unskippable commercials. Do TiVo and Hulu want to accept the howls of complaint they will get? Do people want it on TiVo badly enough to accept forced commercial consumption? These are huge questions.

Is it time for a survey?

I for one would accept it. There are far fewer commercials on Hulu than broadcast, and it would make it possible to dump cable TV. Of course, there's nothing to stop Hulu from putting in more commercials in the future. I just see it as an additional content option, you certainly would still have the option to record stuff as normal.

Does the Tivo YouTube app have any commercials? I've seen pre-rolls on YouTube itself.

The other issue is that as nice as Hulu is, it seems that things top out at 480p. Maybe there's higher res out there, but not for the shows I've been watching.

[steve614]

I think maintaining control means unskippable commercials. Do TiVo and Hulu want to accept the howls of complaint they will get? Do people want it on TiVo badly enough to accept forced commercial consumption? These are huge questions.

Is it time for a survey?

Being OTA only, I'll +1 to accepting commercials if it means I can watch cable shows for free on my TV. Even if they are a season behind.

[mattack]

Does Hulu dump shows after a while? I think I answered my question, yes they expire... I missed the second (I think) episode of this season of Hell's kitchen.. The one right AFTER the guy wigged out and yelled at Ramsay. (I think it was the third hour, but second episode since the premiere was 2 hours.)

I see Hulu has starting at episode 5 this season.. but previous seasons it looks like it has all episodes.. so eventually they all get there, but there's a window for 'current' seasons or something like that.

Even as a commercial hater, I think I would put up with some unskippable commercials for things like this -- getting a MISSED episode.

[ZeoTiVo]

But Hulu would sing a different tune if they made a deal with someone like TiVo and were allowed to maintain control. Plus, TiVo's analytics could prove useful to Hulu and it's ability to sell to it's advertising partners.

Hulu could make a deal with TiVo right now. Hulu does not seem interested.

[nrc]

Hulu could make a deal with TiVo right now. Hulu does not seem interested.

Not sure that's true. Hulu is beholden to the content owners and the content owners don't seem to want Hulu to be a channel for delivery to televisions.

[Dan203]

In fact some content which is available on the web is not available via the Hulu desktop app because content providers don't want it to be accessible anywhere but in the web browser. So even if TiVo were to strike some sort of deal with Hulu we may not have access to everything that's available via the web.

Dan

[mikeyts]

Not sure that's true. Hulu is beholden to the content owners and the content owners don't seem to want Hulu to be a channel for delivery to televisions.Hulu essentially is a set of content owners: it's owned by the holding companies of NBC, Fox and ABC (GE, News Corp and Disney) with a 19% stake held by an equity investment firm.

It has to be a tricky thing to figure out exactly how rebroadcast through Hulu affects advertisers on the original television broadcasts of the things that they carry--they certainly want to avoid Hulu becoming a preferred method of viewing for anyone. Not making it easy to view on TV screens is part of that.

If it become easy to view on TVs for free, it might also have a negative effect on cable subscribership, which affects part of the bottom line of all of those companies.

[lew]

I can live with the small number of commercials on hulu because its free ... now on content i pay for i will skip the dog poo poo out of it :)
This is great news my fingers are crossed hulu is the killer feature for Tivo.
ld

Hulu is onwed by content owners. Would you accept a deal that included disabling FF during commercials everytime the show is aired, not just when viewed via Hulu?

[JasonRossSmith]

What about the Nero LiquidTV™ | TiVo® PC setup? Pretty easy to hook up a PC to your TV, run that and have both? Use the Tivo software for OTA, and Downloads, and use the web browser for HULU.

I for one will never pay for cable again.

Between:

OTA which on Tivo (which lets me time shift & skip commercials)
HULU (Which doesn't let me skip commercials, but lets me time shift, catch something I missed, & get cable shows I couldn't otherwise watch, so I don't care about the commercials.)
iTunes or Amazon Downloads (for those few shows I can't get OTA or on HULU @ about $1/ea.)


There is simply no reason to pay for Cable. Even if there are say 5 shows you need to buy, that air each week, and cost $1 each, that is still only $20/mo and you WONT have new shows all 52 weeks a year.

This is exactly what the cable companies are afraid of, and for good reason. But the free market will force their hand eventually. The high cost of cable isn't 100% just the cable companies greed. Much of it is a combination of the royalties to content providers and Cable's outdated business plan of bundling things and forcing us to subsidize content we don't want.

As with any industry they will need to adapt and recognize that while this new model might not be what they truly desire the world to be, it is coming. Instead of having the perspective that this is "losing" viewers to this new medium, they need to shift their thinking to recognize that this is truly allowing them to "capture" viewers they would never have otherwise. Then, they need to figure out how to adapt their business model to remain a profitable business.

Ok, rant over. Sorry folks.

[slowbiscuit]

What about the Nero LiquidTV™ | TiVo® PC setup? Pretty easy to hook up a PC to your TV, run that and have both? Use the Tivo software for OTA, and Downloads, and use the web browser for HULU.
What about it? From reading the main thread here, it looks to be a buggy piece of crap. And you have to pay every year for the privilege.
If you want Hulu integrated with a DVR, you'll be better served building a Windows 7 HTPC setup with Cablecards when the new tuners come out next year, because who knows when Tivo will deliver.


There is simply no reason to pay for Cable.

Says you. I love it when someone says this, because it's so myopic. Show me where I can watch all the live sports I get on cable today, in full HD, without glitches, and I'll agree. Until then, you are wrong.

[JasonRossSmith]

Says you. I love it when someone says this, because it's so myopic. Show me where I can watch all the live sports I get on cable today, in full HD, without glitches, and I'll agree. Until then, you are wrong.

Perhaps wrong for you...

I should have said: "There is simply no reason for me to pay for Cable, with my needs being met elsewhere."

Perhaps that was implied...

[ZeoTiVo]

Hulu could make a deal with TiVo right now. Hulu does not seem interested.

Not sure that's true. Hulu is beholden to the content owners and the content owners don't seem to want Hulu to be a channel for delivery to televisions.

I don't follow why the distinction of who owns Hulu from Hulu itself - in this context it is the same thing. The owners of Hulu are not interested in Hulu being anywhere but a PC and therefor Hulu is not interested. It is one in the same

[nrc]

I don't follow why the distinction of who owns Hulu from Hulu itself - in this context it is the same thing. The owners of Hulu are not interested in Hulu being anywhere but a PC and therefor Hulu is not interested. It is one in the same

Because there is a distinction. Hulu has its own management team and they can have their own ideas on the right direction for their service. They could believe today that television delivery is the right direction. Unless they can convince their equity owners and a substantial portion of their almost 200 other content providers that's the right direction it won't happen.

[jmoak]

Would you accept a deal that included disabling FF during commercials everytime the show is aired, not just when viewed via Hulu?If they do it the way Hulu now does it (one or two commercials during each break, or that's how they did it the last time I watched Hulu) then no problem.

If they ran eight to twelve commercials per break as the broadcast networks do now, then it'd be a big NO!.

I don't mind a few commercials. I just don't want to be inundated by them.

[ZeoTiVo]

Hulu could make a deal with TiVo right now. Hulu does not seem interested.

Because there is a distinction. Hulu has its own management team and they can have their own ideas on the right direction for their service. They could believe today that television delivery is the right direction. Unless they can convince their equity owners and a substantial portion of their almost 200 other content providers that's the right direction it won't happen.

I just said it in a much shorter sentence that reflects the reality, for whatever reason, that Hulu does not want to be near the TV right now.

[mikeyts]

Because there is a distinction. Hulu has its own management team and they can have their own ideas on the right direction for their service. They could believe today that television delivery is the right direction. Unless they can convince their equity owners and a substantial portion of their almost 200 other content providers that's the right direction it won't happen."200 other content providers"??? Above and beyond the dozens of television and film services owned by NBC/Universal, News Corp and Disney??? Are these listed somewhere?

EDIT: They're listed here (http://www.hulu.com/partners). There are 219 listed content sources, 47 of which belong to Hulu's principles:NBC/Universal:
Bravo, Chiller, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC, NBC News, NBC Sports, NBC Universal, NBCU Television Distribution, NBCU Digital Studios, NBCU TV, Oxygen, Sleuth, SyFy, Universal Media Studios, Universal Pictures, USA, Vivendi Entertainment

Disney-ABC:
ABC, ABC Family, ABC Studios, Touchstone Pictures, Dimension Films, Hollywood Pictures, Soap Net

Fox/New Corp:
15 Gigs, Fox, Fox Atomic, Fox Business, Fox College Sports, Fox Movie Channel, Fox News, Fox Reality, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports, Fox Television Classics, Fox Television Studios, FX, Twentieth Century Fox, National Geographic, National Geographic Channel, Speed

A&E Television Networks (joint property of Hearst, Disney-ABC and NBC/Universal):
A&E, bio., Crime & Investigation, History, Military HistoryI have to think that those account for the lion's share of what's available from Hulu. A big chunk of the rest belongs to CBS (Paramount, etc)--they should try to buy in.

[mulscully]

I've been playing with Hulu via PlayOn for a little while now too. I keep wondering how difficult it would be to build a uPnP HME client for Tivo. Anyone out there have any idea?

I would like to see a uPnP/DLNA HME client for tivo..