Thoughts on Hulu

[Fleur-De-Lis 350]

I decided to start a thread about people's thoughts on Hulu, I decided to leave my rambling about it below, but do fee lfree to take the discussion where you please! I just felt that my opinion on it would be a good start.

 

So i'v been using Hulu for a while, its certainly much cheaper than cable or satellite TV, but using it is infuriating! anyone else feel the same way about it?

 

Problem's with Hulu's video player

Despite the ad revenue they must get, as well as the monthly subscription for the service (and their popularity), why on earth is their player/platform so incompatent!?

 

List of problems I deal with:

• The video has tendencies of garbling up and "green screen" and you have to refresh the page to fix it
• When trying to push the 10 second rewind button (or seeking in general) it tends to do the WRONG thing and skip ahead up to 5 minutes I mean seirously, how the hell can you click on 10 second rewind and end up 5 minutes FORWRARD?
• Sometimes when I try to use the video seeking feature (skipping around the episode), it pauses, acts like its about to buffer the new segment, then goes back to where i was before, and then I have to try seeking to the part i want again!
• When I push the "fullscreen" button, the video stops and I cannot resume until i refresh the page (and watch all the advertisements again; and it can also happen if you do that during advertisements).
• If you use that option to watch a long advertisement/trailer and then get that video garbling problem (and have to refresh the page), you have to watch all advertisements again (you'd think it would keep track.)
• you cant drag the volume up and down (it only goes by a click; it makes it hard to adjust it just where you want it to be)

Excessive advertisements?

I do rather have a problem with what feels like excessive advertisements (I never really used hulu much outside of hulu+) But i feel that hulu+ doesn't get rid of enough advertisements, for every 20 minute episode of an anime for example, there are 3 commercial breaks each with up to 2 advertisements which total up to about 1 minute (in some cases it goes up to 72 seconds I think). I believe free users get up to 4 advertisements per break, and of course the limited selection of their libraries.

 

I understand why they need to have ad revenue as well though, after all there are some shows that have 220+ one hour episodes, and they have MANY shows with tons of episodes like that. But still ...

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,213]

Speaking only from experience with my borther's account and when he uses it, I find Hulu to be worth the price thanks to the up to date selection, but the ads are a bit over the top at times. They sometimes have an ad, then it plays the intro to the show, then sometimes it will play another ad! Like a 2 in 1 ad combo.

 

I have not used it enough to experience the other issues, but ix have heard mixed feelings from many. To me it is worth the payment, but nothing more than its current price thanks to the ad excessiveness.

[Fleur-De-Lis 350]

Yea I agree, its definitely worth the price, especially when compared to cable and satellite services (as mentioned before). To get what we wanted out of that we had to pay $100+ a month, and that is just insane considering how TV is these days.

 

The coding/technical problems behind the video player I find unacceptable though, especially as successful as they are.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Fleur-De-Lis

[Troblems 5,608]

I went through a string of payed streaming services a while back, looking for one solid one where I could watch anime in English, since I watch it while trying to fall asleep. I found reading wasn't conducive to falling asleep.

 

Anyways, I don't mind watching an occasional ad, however the two biggest problems I ran into with Hulu:

• The commercials are in really odd places. In the middle of a badass action sequ...ADVERTISEMENT...ence is not the best oppe...ADVERT!...rtunity.
• The sheer number of ads. I'd be perfectly fine paying more to get rid of them, yet they've not even offered that as an option, and it sucks.

I have decided that for now, Netflix is the best solution for me, which makes me sad.

[Envy 5,993]

I have never had any issues with Hulu. Although I have never gotten Hulu Plus. Hulu has always been a good source for free streaming, so I've watched a lot there. I'm fine with ads - I'm not paying for it.

[Samurai Equine 45,681]

I like Hulu. I'd be more likely to pay for a premium service for that then Netflix.   I just wish they'd make their Free Service more available to other platforms. It's all ready in Standard Definition. It's not like streaming it to a HDTV set or anything will increase the quality.

Edited January 25, 2015 by Samurai Equine

[Fleur-De-Lis 350]

I went through a string of payed streaming services a while back, looking for one solid one where I could watch anime in English, since I watch it while trying to fall asleep. I found reading wasn't conducive to falling asleep.

 

Anyways, I don't mind watching an occasional ad, however the two biggest problems I ran into with Hulu:

• The commercials are in really odd places. In the middle of a badass action sequ...ADVERTISEMENT...ence is not the best oppe...ADVERT!...rtunity.
• The sheer number of ads. I'd be perfectly fine paying more to get rid of them, yet they've not even offered that as an option, and it sucks.

I have decided that for now, Netflix is the best solution for me, which makes me sad.

Well netflix is great, but unfortunately it just doesnt have the TV show selection that hulu+ has. In laymans terms, Hulu is more TV show, and netflix is more movie based. They have a certain lean for each of them.

 

As for advertisements being in odd places, I cant say i'v noticed that for TV shows, but certainly for movies, it does happen.

 

As for anime ... no comment english dubbed isnt as easy to come by as english subbed after all.

[iceestarz 5,752]

I personally have netflix. I have found some great movies on it as well as tv shows on rare occasions but it doesn't have a lot of shows as compared to hulu.

 

My teacher uses hulu in our culinary class so when she doesn't wanna teach we'll just watch chopped or Hell's Kitchen. Aside from the ads it's pretty decent.

[sweetolebob18 724]

I will just say this.  I understand they are in this for the money, NOT from the goodness of their hearts.  This means charging as much as they can & spending as little as possible to provide their services.

 

Nevertheless, they ARE charging for their services & having commercials on top of that is a God Damn RIPOFF!  I can get all the commercials I want for free, thank you very much.  The only reason not to go elsewhere is there isn't anywhere better to go

[ARagY 1,152]

Hulu asking me if I'm over 18. Yeah, right. Like that will stop me from watching stuff. 

 

Oh, and the ads. But adblock works about 45% of the time still. I wouldn't pay for Hulu anyway, it's too niched.

[Fleur-De-Lis 350]

I will just say this.  I understand they are in this for the money, NOT from the goodness of their hearts.  This means charging as much as they can & spending as little as possible to provide their services.

 

Nevertheless, they ARE charging for their services & having commercials on top of that is a God Damn RIPOFF!  I can get all the commercials I want for free, thank you very much.  The only reason not to go elsewhere is there isn't anywhere better to go

Not really, advertisements do not really pay as much as you'd think they would, though it probably is about 30~50% of their revenue (i am random ballparking that). As for "isnt anywhere better to go" im sure there is, I just havent bothered to look, As i recall several "free internet TV services" among other services installed into smart TV's these days.

 

They have to make enough money to cover maintanence of streaming services and storage, as well as licensing for each show (which goes on a renewal basis; naturally each show has a different renewal period, unless of course its bundled with other things from the same company). You have to realize they have Petabytes if not MORE of TV shows and movies, that takes alot of storage, especially since you have to multiply that storage capacity around the country for video streaming services (for the purpose of shorter waypoint distances or something like that).

 

There is actually alot of things behind the scenes to video streaming/internet, So i can somewhat understand the cost of maintaing hulu. But still even with all that they should at LEAST have a video player that functions more smoothly.

[Koukatsu 5,898]

I decided to start a thread about people's thoughts on Hulu, I decided to leave my rambling about it below, but do fee lfree to take the discussion where you please! I just felt that my opinion on it would be a good start.

 

So i'v been using Hulu for a while, its certainly much cheaper than cable or satellite TV, but using it is infuriating! anyone else feel the same way about it?

 

Problem's with Hulu's video player

Despite the ad revenue they must get, as well as the monthly subscription for the service (and their popularity), why on earth is their player/platform so incompatent!?

 

List of problems I deal with:

• The video has tendencies of garbling up and "green screen" and you have to refresh the page to fix it
• When trying to push the 10 second rewind button (or seeking in general) it tends to do the WRONG thing and skip ahead up to 5 minutes I mean seirously, how the hell can you click on 10 second rewind and end up 5 minutes FORWRARD?
• Sometimes when I try to use the video seeking feature (skipping around the episode), it pauses, acts like its about to buffer the new segment, then goes back to where i was before, and then I have to try seeking to the part i want again!
• When I push the "fullscreen" button, the video stops and I cannot resume until i refresh the page (and watch all the advertisements again; and it can also happen if you do that during advertisements).
• If you use that option to watch a long advertisement/trailer and then get that video garbling problem (and have to refresh the page), you have to watch all advertisements again (you'd think it would keep track.)
• you cant drag the volume up and down (it only goes by a click; it makes it hard to adjust it just where you want it to be)

Excessive advertisements?

I do rather have a problem with what feels like excessive advertisements (I never really used hulu much outside of hulu+) But i feel that hulu+ doesn't get rid of enough advertisements, for every 20 minute episode of an anime for example, there are 3 commercial breaks each with up to 2 advertisements which total up to about 1 minute (in some cases it goes up to 72 seconds I think). I believe free users get up to 4 advertisements per break, and of course the limited selection of their libraries.

 

I understand why they need to have ad revenue as well though, after all there are some shows that have 220+ one hour episodes, and they have MANY shows with tons of episodes like that. But still ...

I have the green screening issue, and I can tell you for a fact they've increased the number of ad breaks per show, and kept the number of ads per break about the same. Plus, I have an issue where it says I'm adblocking, which is disabled on anything hulu, so that's a bullpocky statement right there, but while I'm (not)adblocking, it just gives me a black screen for 60-120 seconds.

They need to fix their product.

Still, when all is said and done, it's still better than dealing with TV/Cable/Satellite. That's the sad part. :okiedokielokie:

[ReverseFaller 2,483]

I don't care much for hulu. If I'm paying for a monthly subscription, I don't want to have to deal with four or five commercial breaks per episode of whatever I'm watching. Also, fast forwarding and rewinding sucks. Sometimes it'll set it back to the start of an episode, and you have to fast forward back to where you were. When you're fast forwarding, you have to re watch the commercial breaks that you pass, and it's really annoying. Sure, Hulu has a lot of good shows. It also updates fast. But it doesn't remember where you leave off and it has a lot of little things about it that I find too much trouble to make it worth my time.

[Fleur-De-Lis 350]

Plus, I have an issue where it says I'm adblocking, which is disabled on anything hulu, so that's a bullpocky statement right there, but while I'm (not)adblocking, it just gives me a black screen for 60-120 seconds.

They need to fix their product.

Still, when all is said and done, it's still better than dealing with TV/Cable/Satellite. That's the sad part. :okiedokielokie:

Well the issue stems from not also unblocking the advertising websites ... like adnexus or doublecick, etc.  as the advertisements arent really hosted by hulu, but stream to it ... or at least thats my understanding of how that works from noscript.

 

But yep, sadly despite all those issues which really should be fixed ... its still better than TV/Cable/Satellite.

[mars 4,861]

Oh man, I love hulu. But their advertisements are the worst things ever. They can freeze your show, cause lag, sometimes cause a black screen. Also, on the TV, hulu can be a bit of a jerk. It takes forever to play the episode, sometimes you constantly have to keep rebooting the app for it to work.

[xlwpos 12]

Not a fan. I had too many vids hang up on the commercials. That and they frequently do not have what I want compare to less legit sites. Also they have pages for shows they do not have vids for. Frustrating when you are searching for obscure content. I will say this for them:

 

I watched every episode of 21 Jumpstreet on Hulu. Big Hoof for that.

[Fleur-De-Lis 350]

This just in! There is apparently now(?) also a problem with stupid hulu player causing adobe flash player to CRASH. I am not sure who's fault that one is exactly, but im just going to go with hulu on that one.

[Gernia 690]

In my experiences Hulu is nice for finding shows I want to watch, but the ads annoy me. Never had a subscription of any kind. Thanks to discovering Dailymotion, I don't believe I'll ever need to use that site ever again.

[Retro*Derpy 3,078]

I have ad-less hulu and I enjoy it almost everyday. It even shows anime one day after aired in Japan.

[Here No Longer 5,270]

I like it, though the ads can get really irritating...

Edited May 4, 2019 by Dusklicious

[Envy 5,993]

I hate how Hulu is now pay only now. I understand paying for such a service, I just think that there are too many streaming services now. Even if I just want to watch anime, there's CR, there's Netflix, there's Hulu, and now there's even another one I forget the name of that popped up a couple of years ago and randomly started taking more simulcasts forcing another subscription to even see them at all. There's also FUNimation, but I'm not aware of any thing they get exclusively aside from dubbed versions. (I could be wrong)

It's very annoying.

[Rebel the Wolfgirl 5,585]

I primarily use Hulu and Netflix, and enjoy both.

[Dreambiscuit 8,021]

I tried it on a free trial basis and didn't like it at all. It may not have commercials, but what's the point if you get 30 seconds of blank screen instead? I got it so I could watch older episodes of a series I like, but it didn't even have the whole series. I cancelled and have no intention of getting it again. 

[Lucky Bolt 34,914]

I had Hulu for a short time, and it was ok. My only complaint would be, it buffered a lot and I didn't get Discovery Family with it. 

[Kaneki 1,072]

Hulu is the only service I pay for, considering Funimation removed a lot of older series on Crunchyroll. I just leech off my parents' Netflix other than that.

The app interface is rather annoying, especially on Roku due to how.... slow it usually navigates.