My invite to join the private beta of Hulu finally came through today. For those of you that are unaware of what hulu is all about....
"Hulu's ambitious and never-ending mission is to help you find and enjoy the world's premium content when, where and how you want it. We hope to provide you with the web's most comprehensive selection of premium programming across all genres and formats – television shows, feature films, clips, and more. Additionally, we want to give you more choices of when and where you can enjoy your favorite programming, while creating innovative experiences that let you watch and participate in online video in new and exciting ways."
This arrival of this new service is all thanks to NBC universal and News Corp. The cool thing about hulu is the definitely the quality and timeliness of the video content available. Whilst most of us have become used to the grainy, segmented uploads of TV shows and content on youtube, it is nice to see the big players in TV finally coming to the party and giving users what we always wanted- TV on demand online.
Unfortunately, the content on hulu is currently only available to members residing in the USA.....so I am still stuck with TVNZ's wannabe version of TV on demand online. The TVNZ on demand site sorta pisses me off as it really only contains a limited snapshot of certain TVNZ content. When it first launched I expected to be able to view any content that TVNZ had in their content database, dating back to whenever they started. Now that would be true on-demand television!
What do you guys think of your local TV networks strategies to make their content available online?
Although TVNZ ondemand has international content which is great and shows they are dedicated to building their ondemand service.
Posted by: Gabriel Pollard | December 06, 2007 at 03:35 PM
The best online TV service I know of is the Norwegian state-owned network NRK at http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv. They began making their content available online as early as in 1999 and now has over 50,000 shows avilable.
Although it is in Norwegian it is worth having a look at the structuring of this service, go to http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv
You dont have to be registered to use it. It offers content produced from back in the 50's to current daily news programmes.
NRK is widely critisised for imposing a high broadcasting tax on anyone who owns a TV tuner. But this online content service goes a long way in justifying such tax.
Posted by: Espen Grimstad | December 09, 2007 at 02:15 PM
I finally got my Hulu account as well and can see what you mean about the service being restricted to U.S. residents only. Luckily there is a way around it. I have been enjoying brand new TV shows on live streaming since yesterday! :) I have written a walk through on my site; http://www.espen.co.nz/myblog/viewing-hulu.com-from-other-countries.html
Happy viewing!
Posted by: Espen Grimstad | January 04, 2008 at 06:41 PM