hulu solution suggestion

[lukelovesyou]

I have a suggestion.

I love Boxee, and I love hulu. Right now, the hulu feed works only so-so on my mac version of boxee, but generally boxee works great. I also love the Hulu desktop program. It seems the hosting of hulu content in boxee is a real sticking point. So here is my suggestion:

Since boxee integration with hulu seems so problematic, why not just write a small application, in boxee, that would launch and then switch to the hulu desktop program? I'm assuming a good programmer could make this pretty seemless, and make it go right back to boxee when exiting hulu desktop. I personally think the hulu desktop interface is great, but i dont like getting off my couch to switch programs on my trackpad. Could this work? has it been tried? If i knew how, i would have done it already.

[Nekura20x6]

I think part of the problem is the inability to program the Hulu desktop for remotes which would be less than useful for those of us with HTPCs. The UI for Hulu is also hard to see at a distance as it was not designed for TV.

Still - if I had to pick no Hulu or Hulu Desktop, I'd be making due.

I actually don't mind the current implementation. I subscribe to the shows I want so they are in my queue making me unaffected by the browsing issues.

I'm hoping that Hulu gets smart and looks at Boxee as another user base. We are watching their videos with commercials intact, so I don't see what their issue is.

[sfsmiley]

We are watching their videos with commercials intact, so I don't see what their issue is.

its nothing do with whether or not were watching commercials. its the fact they only want people watching on desktops/laptops. *not* replacing their living room big screen with boxee and hulu solution and canceling cable. what they dont realize is in my opinion only a small percentage of the population would cancel cable, i think a greater percentage would use it as a supplement. thats what i do anyway.

[TheEremite]

FWIW, I've been using mira to launch and switch between boxee and hulu and dvd player (or whatever other app you want) using the remote. It's not like having hulu integrated into boxee but it works well enough.

[Nekura20x6]

what they dont realize is in my opinion only a small percentage of the population would cancel cable, i think a greater percentage would use it as a supplement.

I'm in that small percentage. I only get 20 channels now, half of which are a mix of some form of home shopping, local access crap, or Spanish language programming. Everything else comes from the Internet.

I'm happy to watch their stream with commercials to support their content. If they don't want me to do that, then I'm just going to grab them from BitTorrent like I do with the rest of my shows.

I'm assuming most Boxee users are in the same situation. Pretty soon, all versions of Boxee will have their own built-in P2P client to make it even easier! If they choose to lock us out, they are only hurting themselves. For a site that is planning to go to a subscription-based model, you'd think they'd want to get as many customers as possible, especially the die-hard savvy ones like Boxee users.

Of course, these are the same geniuses that developed DiVX (Buy DVDs that you can't really own!)

As HTPCs become more and more common especially with devices like AppleTV and TVs with built-in content streaming that make the process turnkey and easily accessible, this will become a much bigger issue for them. For now, I think you're right - most people watch on their laptop or at their desk and haven't even considered Hulu on their TV set.