Hulu, the U.S. video streaming service that has a large archive of TV shows and movies, is doing rather well. Their premium service, Hulu Plus, has 1.5 Million subscribers which is way up from their last numbers of 300,000 a year prior.

Compared to Netflix, Hulu has a long way to go as the company has nearly 24 Million subscribers. Still, a 1.2 Million increase in one year is pretty good for a relatively new service. Makes one wonder if a part of the increase is from Netflix’s screw up last year with trying to split their service and charge customers more.

Via Yahoo News:

“Revenue also grew substantially, Kilar blogged. Hulu grew its business 60 percent from 2010 to approximately $420 million in revenue. That is impressive growth, but it falls just short of Hulu’s projections. Kilar had previously stated that the company was on track to “approach” $500 million in revenue.”

While it does fall short, the impressive growth shows that the service is hitting a sweet spot with users. And to think that they were consider shutting down the service before Hulu Plus took off in popularity.

For them to do well in 2012, they need to continue to build out their premium service. Ads for free users are great, but that’s not where the real money is at.

“The subscription part of the business is incredibly important to Hulu’s future and is key to nudging the still growing company into the black. Kilar said in the post that he expects the subscription services to account for more than half of Hulu’s overall business in 2012.”

Hulu Now Has 1.5 Million Paying Subscribers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Reports are circulating in which Amazon has reached a business agreement with Warner Bros. that will make the company the first major retailer to offer films in the upcoming UltraViolet digital format.

News of the deal surfaced at CNET just one day after Amazon VP Bill Carr had announced at a CES panel discussion that the company had reached a deal with a major Hollywood studio.

During his announcement Carr stood on the stage with members of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) including Warner Bros., Fox., Universal and Sony.

The announcement still hasn’t been officially made by Warner Bros. or Amazon.

If you’re unfamiliar with the UltraViolet format it’s intended as a way to alleviate the jitters some users feel over Internet video while still keeping the sales of physical discs. During the programs early implementation restrictions were placed on how long they could hold onto a digital copy and some technical encounters were experienced.

According to the UV group they will adopt a common file format in late 2012 which should help solve technical issues that are associated with different digital rights management setups.

Do you think the move to the UltraViolet system was a smart decision for Amazon and the studios that support it? Would you be more inclined to use the program if a common file format was implemented by studios using UltraViolet technology?

Amazon and Warner Bros. Reach Agreement Over UltraViolet Digital Format is a post from: The Inquisitr

Broadcom, the company that makes chips for wireless and broadband communications, is unveiling four new wifi chips at CES 2012. This new generation which the company is calling “5G Wifi”, will support speeds up to 1.3Gbps or 162.5 MB per second and use the 802.11ac standard.

For users who do a lot of home video streaming, these new wifi chips will allow them to not only stream content much faster, but allow them to have higher quality content thanks to the fact that the days of buffering are virtually obsolete.

How is Broadcom able to pull it off? From PCWorld:

“The new standard achieves this performance through a variety of mechanisms, including wider channel bandwidth of 80MHz or more, a higher modulation scheme and beamforming, which directs a radio’s signal. In addition, the new standard will solely use the 5GHz band, which currently is less crowded with Wi-Fi and other devices than is Wi-Fi’s other band at 2.4GHz.”

Thanks to these wifi chips running on the 5GHZ band, users can expect very little if any interference at all. As demand for wireless home network streaming grows, this line from Broadcom is sure to support the speeds that people need.

As far as the 802.11n wireless standard today:

“Even the lowest end of 802.11ac technology will outstrip current 802.11n gear, and with lower power consumption. A single-stream radio has a theoretical top speed of 433M bps, or about 350M bps in the real world. Those single-stream components can be used in mobile phones. With 802.11n, even multiple-stream devices don’t typically surpass 300M bps.”

Broadcom Unveiling New Lightning Fast Wifi Chips, Up To 1.3Gbps is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hulu may be on the selling block at the moment but that hasn’t stopped the company from launching their premium monthly subscription service in Japan.

According to Hulu the Japanese service located at Hulu.jp brings ”hundreds of premium feature films and thousands of episodes of popular TV shows”

Among the service’s selections are Pirates of the Caribbean, Armageddon and Men in Black along with top TV shows including Desperate Housewives, Fringe and Grey’s Anatomy among other popular titles.

According to Engadget:

Overall the list looks more like Netflix than Hulu’s free or Plus services in the US do. So far Japanese users can stream the content directly to Panasonic TVs, iOS and select Android devices, with Panasonic Blu-ray players, Sony Blu-ray players and TVs, Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles and Android tablets all relegated to the “coming soon” list.

In celebration of the launch Hulu has also partnered with Japan’s largest mobile network NTT Docomo to provide content to users.

The platform has also partnered with various top film studios and TV networks including:

CBS, NBCUniversal International Television Distribution, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, The Walt Disney Company (Japan) featuring content from Disney/ABC Television Group and The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros.

In the meantime, Hulu is offering Japanese customers one month free premium service to try out the platform before they have to make a no-obligation decision.

Would you be willing to pay just under $20 for a service that can be purchased in the United States for less than half the price?

Hulu Launches Monthly Plan In Japan, Charges Nearly $20 is a post from: The Inquisitr

A recent survey of Netflix customers has shown that nearly 2 million people plan to cancel the service after Netflix changed their DVD and streaming pricing structure, separating the two services and now it looks like the company is gaining some competition from an unlikely competitor, Walmart.

The retail giant purchased video on demand service Vudu 18 months ago and yesterday the company launched the program on their retail website.

Unlike Netflix which offers a monthly subscription fee for video streaming, often on sub-par movie titles and TV shows, Vudu offers more than 20,000 titles that can be rented and then streamed immediately for prices ranging from $1 to $5.99, while some movies can be purchased for as little as $4.99.

Vudu also has another deal up their sleeve’s, their streaming and downloadable movies are available the same day they arrive on DVD, while Netflix customers must wait a full month before they can request a DVD be delivered at their homes, while popular titles may see a delay in shipping times to some customers.

It will be interesting to see if Walmart ends up offering any super cheap movies below retail sales prices as part of their Vudu promotions, the company has a history of selling CDs for less than they purchased them for, driving customers into their stores, that type of promotion could get people interested in the video on demand and purchase or stream more titles offered by Vudu.

Do you prefer the Netflix unlimited streaming service or a video service with more up-to-date titles with the option to buy?

Walmart To Compete With Netflix, Launches Vudu Service On Their Website is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Wii U still has a lot of unresolved questions, such as how users will play games with two new video controllers at one time when only one is supported for the systems first games (this has been answered, but not to the liking of many users). Another big question mark regards when the system will debut. According to reports the Wii U will arrive in Q2, 2012, possibly around April 1st.

Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, recently spoke with David M. Ewalt at Forbes and revealed that both the Wii and Wii U will be sold side-by-side when the new system is revealed, that games as we already knew will be playable on just one video displayed Wii U controller (the other player must use an old-fashioned WiiMote and Nunchuck) and that the system could technically stream videos to the portable remote screen, such as content from a Netflix account.

In Fils-Aime’s own words, the system won’t launch until “After April 1st.”

Hopefully supply keeps up with demand this time around since 200% markups is annoying and bad form during the holiday shopping season.

Wii U Launching After April 1st, May Stream Video To Controllers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Although Netflix hasn’t confirmed the dates yet word has come out that Trekkies will be in their glory starting July 1st as the original Star Trek, in HD, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise will hit Netflix’s Watch Instantly queue.

Then on October 1st we’ll see the addition of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 will be joining its brethren.

However it’snot all good news as this will be happening in the U.S. only. In other words no Star Trek goodness for Canadian members of the video streaming service.

via Engadget

Netflix shows some serious Star Trek love is a post from: The Inquisitr

This video streaming thing is getting really messy.

In the past week Netflix set the television networks on notice – original content doesn’t just belong to you because we’re going down that road, even if it is going to cost us $100 million to do so.

I am of course talking about the announcement that Netflix was sinking $100 million into creating an original content series based on the British drama called House of Cards. In the days following the announcement though it seems that the networks are more than a little upset by this news and have started pulling shows from Netflix.

This action was lead by Showtime who said that they will no longer be providing the older seasons of Dexter and Californication from streaming on Netflix. shortly after cable network Starz announced that they will be delaying the streaming of Camelot episodes by 90 days; and is tossing around the possibility of withholding other movies from Netflix streaming.

There is no doubt that Netflix entry into streaming original content can be seen as a threat to the networks and a real game-changer. It is also obvious that this move by Netflix is causing real concern for the established networks, a concern that is making them rethink their agreements with the company and signs of a possible backlash against Netflix.

As Jared Newman at Technologizer points out  this is going to get ugly:

Still, House of Cards is no panacea. Netflix still needs great content from other sources for its streaming service to grow, but Netflix’s growth is what makes Hollywood so nervous in the first place. This is going to get ugly.

Yes, this is going to get ugly but those same networks maybe missing out on a rather important point – the consumer.

While this whole streaming video is still pretty new, especially when it comes to companies like Netflix getting into original content, the consumer is climbing on the bandwagon in a big way. We are fed up with cable companies, television networks, and the Internet providers who are increasing their ownership in those areas, trying to dictate the extent of what we can watch online.

So while we might be worried about an entertainment industries backlash against things like Netflix I believe we are reaching a point where there will be a backlash against those very companies by the consumer. I am not sure how this backlash will happen or how it will look but you can be sure that like Jared says – it’s only started to get ugly.

A backlash against the Netflix backlash is a post from: The Inquisitr

News Corp Deputy Chairman Chase Carey told press that the service won’t be free anymore starting as soon as 2010. (That’s in two months, people!)

Carey told reporters that Hulu was likely to become a subscription service, although it’s not clear how the video-streaming site plans to lure users who have been using it for free all along. Over on Twitter, many irritated fans say they would consider paying for the service if ads were cut, but I’d think such a significant change would have been worth a mention by Carey when he broke the news to reporters. Carey merely said:

“I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value.”

Of course, as Hulu has been a “free model” all along, it seems like a tough row to hoe trying to charge for it now. If the only additional access in this scenario is between Hulu and your wallet, customers are likely to just get their content through other means. However, going by other companies who’ve decided to charge for content suddenly with no added benefit (such as Newsday hallucinating that people will pay $20 a month to read about pumpkin picking and car wrecks on Long Island), it’s not that much of a stretch to believe that Hulu is suffering from the same delusions of grandeur. Which is a shame, because everyone I know who uses Hulu regularly adores it.

Everyone, blow kisses and say goodnight to free Hulu! is a post from: The Inquisitr

“Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Burn.

Sometime this weekend, Playstation 3 owners began reporting inability to access Hulu through the device, and receiving  the above message. Hulu was kind of all huhwha? about the whole thing, but Engadget reports that Hulu terms of service were updated on June 26th. While it was initially speculated the issues could be connected to a recent firmware update, altering a browser’s user-string that way indicates the PS3 was specifically blocked by Hulu.

But why, Hulu? Why you gotta be like that?

Way back in March, Hulu blocked the hell out of Boxee, citing consumer convenience bitching content providers. Since then, it’s been an on/off thing, spawning this Twitter feed:

While Hulu can’t bite the content-providing hand that feeds it, it’s extremely counterintuitive to provide such a service just to add arbitrary blocks making it inconvenient to use. And as Hulu hasn’t given a reason for the new lockdown, we can only speculate as to why the PS3 was selected for this round of “no content for you!”

IT World presents two theories on the matter. Theory #1- quit bringing the content to your TVs, damnit! If you’re gonna watch Hulu, it’s gonna be on your smudgy little laptop screen or not at all! (Because no one can hook computers up to TVs, that’s just crazytalk?) Theory #2- Hulu’s coming to the XBox 360, and Microsoft paid Hulu to cut off competition.

Whatever the reason is behind this latest round of early-adopter jerking-around, it’s just another example of short-sightedness regarding a changing marketplace. The same consumers that use services like Hulu are likely the ones who are already aware of how to implement a work around, like PlayOn. So they’re not really stopping anything, just pissing everyone off.

Hulu for PS3: Denied is a post from: The Inquisitr

In a small gathering of press this morning, YouTube unveiled YouTube XL- a new service that brings your favorite cat falling off stuff and shoddy folk cover videos straight to your TV!

While online computer-to-tv streaming services and Hulu and Boxee offer content optimized for TV, YouTube videos often didn’t even really do well in monitor full-screen mode. But YouTube XL changes that, optimizing content for viewing even on huge-screen TVs.

Although YouTube XL lacks some features of regular YouTube, (most notably the comments, yay!) YouTube XL supports playlists, HD video and even has an application called Gmote for Android phones. (Where’s the iPhone love at, YouTube?) And unlike Hulu Desktop, which needs a computer to rock and roll, you can use YouTube XL on devices with a browser such as the Wii, XBox and PS3- making the interface friendly for a larger group of users.

Wanna take it for a spin? Go on!

Sweet: YouTube coming to your TV! is a post from: The Inquisitr

The company will start airing flicks on the ABC network Saturday nights, then putting the full-length features on Disney.com’s “Wonderful World of Disney” section for the following week. It’ll happen all summer.

“Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.,” and “Freaky Friday” are already on the line-up. Expect to see plenty of magically inserted mid-movie ads.

Disney Offers Free Movie Streaming is a post from: The Inquisitr