# Hulu Plus a horrible deal



## dvrpundit (Sep 22, 2011)

The administrators pulled my first posting that used non-obscene terms to express the depth of my disappointment with using Hulu Plus on Tivo and my decision to cancel that service within hours of purchasing it.

1. You cannot view the free Hulu material via Tivo

2. Even the obscure failedcom that I watched via Hulu Plus had the NBC logo in the corner and was interrupted by commercials every 15 minutes; the lame excuse by Hulu reps was that this helped keep costs down, but I would not be surprised if the rights holder did not have to pay Hulu to provide this turkey that I decided to check out.

3. Your Hulu Plus queue will not load if you have more than 100 episodes; this is typically less than five television seasons

4. Selecting an episode from your queue requires a slow and tedious horizontal scroll through other the placards for other episodes.


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## Torgo (Dec 31, 2001)

What does any of this have to do with Tivo? These are all Hulu Plus 'features', regardless of device.


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## Aero 1 (Aug 8, 2007)

dvrpundit said:


> The administrators pulled my first posting that used non-obscene terms to express the depth of my disappointment with using Hulu Plus on Tivo and my decision to cancel that service within hours of purchasing it.
> 
> 1. You cannot view the free Hulu material via Tivo
> 
> ...


i cant comment on #3 and #4 since I am a smart, well informed consumer that does his diligent homework and doesn't pay for the service. if you were one of those types of consumers, you would see that hulu specifically states part 1 of your gripe all over the place. In case you missed the obvious, numerous articles, blog posts, forum postings will tell you the same.

part 2 is what it is. if you use the free service, its free, its going to have adds. for the paid service, you are paying for HD quality and new episodes, not the removal of adds. again, all of that is stated everywhere.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

dvrpundit said:


> 1. You cannot view the free Hulu material via Tivo


This too is Tivo-irrelevant. Hulu Plus is not a superset of Hulu. Tivo has Hulu Plus. Thus Tivo does not have 'regular' Hulu. You would see this via web browser too.


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## I WANT MORE (Oct 13, 2009)

Tivo offered a free 6mo sub to Hulu+. That makes it relevent. 
I agree with the OP. I also thought Hulu+ was a POS and droped it before I was to begin being charged for it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I'm still paying for Hulu+. If I had known earlier I could have suspended it for the Summer I would have to save the three months of fees. Since I use Hulu Plus during the regular broadcast TV season which is starting up now.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

mattack said:


> This too is Tivo-irrelevant. Hulu Plus is not a superset of Hulu. Tivo has Hulu Plus. Thus Tivo does not have 'regular' Hulu. You would see this via web browser too.


True and was apparent from the start to those of us who were paying attention. However, I think it is a misleading name that does suggest it IS a superset. Not sure what would have been a better name.....


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## BetaMark (Jan 24, 2008)

Aero 1 said:


> For the paid service, you are paying for HD quality and new episodes, not the removal of adds. Again, all of that is stated everywhere.


Yes, it's stated everywhere... but what's not so obvious is that Hulu forces you to watch the commercials; you cannot skip through them à la TiVo. Even worse, Hulu goes through an annoying process of buffering/caching every time it shuffles between content and ads, which can make a TV show drag. That's enough of a deal-breaker for me.


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## aridon (Aug 31, 2006)

For someone that doesn't want the gear for OTA but wants their local networks without cable or another service, hulu is ok. Otherwise its a waste and Netflix fills the roll better. IMO.

Like all of Tivo's third party programs its no surprise that the Hulu app is poorly implemented. Just about everything is including the netflix app.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

Odd, I was just realizing earlier, before this thread started, that I'm paying for Hulu Plus every month and never using it, because it never has what I want or need (like missed episodes of CBS shows, or even Rescue Me on FX, which I didn't know even had another season coming).

Thanks to this "TiVo irrelevant thread", I now know why the series I was watching on my GF's laptop with her using regular Hulu, was not available on my TiVo, nor my new, and much bigger screen size, Sony TV.

It would be nice if people are going to jump all over the O.P. for something that is "stated all over the place", that those saying such things, post links to some of these "all over the place", well.... places. I'm usually pretty good about reading T.O.S. and such, and even read the legalese that many ignore. Yet, somehow this slipped right by me.

I predict that I will be cancelling, and am glad this thread was started. Thank You.


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

mattack said:


> This too is Tivo-irrelevant. Hulu Plus is not a superset of Hulu. Tivo has Hulu Plus. Thus Tivo does not have 'regular' Hulu. *You would see this via web browser too.*


No, you wouldn't. With a web browser you have access to everything in one place.


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## javabird (Oct 13, 2006)

scandia101 said:


> No, you wouldn't. With a web browser you have access to everything in one place.


Hulu and Hulu Plus are different services. So you would have to subscribe to Hulu Plus to access that particular content -- even in a web browser. (Which is why I dropped Hulu when they when split it into 2 services and started charging for commercial-filled shows.)


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

javabird said:


> Hulu and Hulu Plus are different services. So you would have to subscribe to Hulu Plus to access that particular content -- even in a web browser. (Which is why I dropped Hulu when they when split it into 2 services and started charging for commercial-filled shows.)


Why are you quoting me?


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

I am continually mystified as to how anyone could be confused by the fact that Hulu and Hulu+ have completely different programming, this was one of the biggest issues constantly brought up when Hulu+ launched.

This is the 21st century, anyone can get informed with a tad of searching, there's just no excuse, if you can post to TCF you have internet access to search.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

dianebrat said:


> I am continually mystified as to how anyone could be confused by the fact that Hulu and Hulu+ have completely different programming, this was one of the biggest issues constantly brought up when Hulu+ launched.
> 
> This is the 21st century, anyone can get informed with a tad of searching, there's just no excuse, if you can post to TCF you have internet access to search.


Your post seems of the type that people tend to jump all over. I'm not trying to do that.

I have so much TiVo related stuff that I try to keep up with, along with other things I try to keep up with, and well as trying to be diligent about actually reading (and more importantly, UNDERSTANDING) T.O.S. before clicking "I agree".

I wouldn't have wound up a subscriber if it weren't for the free one-month deal offered. I bet many who qualified for six months would say that too. I didn't give a flying ----, about hulu and/or hulu plus and never used either prior to the trial offers TiVo started offering. So, I wouldn't be keeping up with current events/news, or old news regarding either.

Now, a show of hands for those who spent an hour, or two, making sure that "free" actually meant free. Then, those who searched around, focusing primarily on how hard it would be to cancel, any special terms/fine print on that, and looking for others who had perhaps done a trial, or even paid sub, who may have had problems getting it cancelled.

I did all that. Although if it is in the T.O.S., maybe I was worn-out from making sure free was free and could easily be cancelled without incurring charges, and thought if I had anything to worry about, I'd have run across it already. If I didn't, at least I knew I could cancel very easily.

To prevent a barrage of people saying "Well, just cancel then!", I'll repeat, from another post. Before this thread, wasn't aware of why things I had been watching from a laptop were gone when using non-computer devices. I simply thought they got removed from the selection. Now, thanks to this thread, I know.

Knowing this now, I'm much more likely to cancel, but will check both versions of hulu out and try to find something in the Plus version that I want/need. I've only been paying for two months so far, unlike how I was paying extra for Netflix w/DVD by mail, and hadn't queued up any DVDs in over a year.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

scandia101 said:


> No, you wouldn't. With a web browser you have access to everything in one place.


Yes, you would. You would have to go to hulu separately, not the hulu plus listings.


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## Scyber (Apr 25, 2002)

dlfl said:


> True and was apparent from the start to those of us who were paying attention. However, I think it is a misleading name that does suggest it IS a superset. Not sure what would have been a better name.....


Technically, Hulu+ is a superset. There is not one thing you can do w/o a subscription that you can't do with a subscription. While there a number of things you can do with a subscription that you can't do without.

Although since this does seem to be the #1 complaint from users, i have to agree that perhaps the naming could have been better.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

Scyber said:


> Technically, Hulu+ is a superset. There is not one thing you can do w/o a subscription that you can't do with a subscription.


There are certain titles Hulu hasn't licensed for television or mobile platforms. Meaning, some content available on the Hulu website free of charge is not available to Hulu Plus subscribers via TiVo or iPad. True, subscribers and non-subscribers alike can access that free content via web browser. But it can be confusing to have different titles available on different platforms. It surely doesn't help their cause and is conceptually different than say Netflix's streaming solution.


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## Scyber (Apr 25, 2002)

davezatz said:


> There are certain titles Hulu hasn't licensed for television or mobile platforms. Meaning, some content available on the Hulu website free of charge is not available to Hulu Plus subscribers via TiVo or iPad. True, subscribers and non-subscribers alike can access that free content via web browser. But it can be confusing to have different titles available on different platforms. It surely doesn't help their cause and is conceptually different than say Netflix's streaming solution.


I understand that and I understand that it is confusing to users (as I stated in my 2nd paragraph). That doesn't change the fact that Hulu+ is a superset of functionality of Hulu. With free hulu you can watch thousands of titles via a web browsesr. With Hulu+ you can watch even more titles via a web browser, and you can watch some titles via other devices.

And I'm not sure Netflix is a good example of being that conceptually different. I still run into people that are surprised/disappointed that they can't stream everything that is available via DVD. Obviously that will change now that the DVD and streaming businesses are being split.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Scyber said:


> I understand that and I understand that it is confusing to users (as I stated in my 2nd paragraph). That doesn't change the fact that Hulu+ is a superset of functionality of Hulu. With free hulu you can watch thousands of titles via a web browsesr. With Hulu+ you can watch even more titles via a web browser, and you can watch some titles via other devices.
> 
> And I'm not sure Netflix is a good example of being that conceptually different. I still run into people that are surprised/disappointed that they can't stream everything that is available via DVD. Obviously that will change now that the DVD and streaming businesses are being split.


people will still think that. Although any person who did just little research knew you could not stream all disc titles.

Although I really don't know how someone could think that for only $8 a month you could stream anywhere close to every disc title Netflix has. It's not a realistic expectation.


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

I picked up on this thread when I recently got a Premiere because it comes with a free 6 months of Hulu+ (if you sign up). I've used Hulu before but just to find really old stuff like the original Outer Limits show in black and white. Stream it on my laptop connected via HDMI to my TV. I will skip the Hulu+ offer because of the potential hassle of cutting it off and the lack of programming I'm interested in. I do like that I can download VOD movies from Amazon on my S2DT, S3HD and Premiere boxes because that replaces the VOD that I lost when I turned in my cablebox. I will say that it is a pain having to wait on the download but it is nice that the recording is actually on the Tivo (no mid-stream blips like cable VOD).


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## aadam101 (Jul 15, 2002)

davezatz said:


> There are certain titles Hulu hasn't licensed for television or mobile platforms. Meaning, some content available on the Hulu website free of charge is not available to Hulu Plus subscribers via TiVo or iPad. True, subscribers and non-subscribers alike can access that free content via web browser. But it can be confusing to have different titles available on different platforms. It surely doesn't help their cause and is conceptually different than say Netflix's streaming solution.


Hulu has also blocked certain mobile browsers from accessing their site. This is where I take issue with them. They don't have to support every browser but I see no reason for them to flat out block certain browsers.


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## pileosnafu (Jul 23, 2005)

aadam101 said:


> Hulu has also blocked certain mobile browsers from accessing their site. This is where I take issue with them. They don't have to support every browser but I see no reason for them to flat out block certain browsers.


its partly due to license agreements


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

The problem is they created the site to curtail piracy. They had no foresight that people would want to watch content on something other than the website. So now they are stuck with a terrible licensing structure that causes this mess. My guess is if Hulu does survive a few more years, they will finally have the licensing mess straightened out and you will not have the same confusion.


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## SimonGoodwin (Sep 29, 2011)

I agree... Hulu+ tor TiVo is horrible!
Queue just seems to break all the time.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

SimonGoodwin said:


> I agree... Hulu+ tor TiVo is horrible!
> Queue just seems to break all the time.


Isn't the queue problem only an issue when you have over a certain amount in your queue?
I've not had any issues with Hulu+ on my Premieres, but I also only have around 85 items in my queue.


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## KungFuCow (May 6, 2004)

dlfl said:


> True and was apparent from the start to those of us who were paying attention. However, I think it is a misleading name that does suggest it IS a superset. Not sure what would have been a better name.....


Hulu Minus?


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## muzzymate (Sep 2, 2004)

Has there been any word about when Hulu Plus shows will show up in the Tivo Premiere search? (like the other partners do- ie: Netflix, Amazon, etc.) Defeats the whole purpose of having a "single place to search" if available programs aren't listed there.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

muzzymate said:


> Has there been any word about when Hulu Plus shows will show up in the Tivo Premiere search? (like the other partners do- ie: Netflix, Amazon, etc.) Defeats the whole purpose of having a "single place to search" if available programs aren't listed there.


I'm not holding my breath. TiVo/Netflix (or whoever) can't even keep the Netflix streaming titles straight. I keep getting more and more instances of wanting to watch a movie that shows up on TiVo, but isn't allowed to stream when I select it. These errant movies don't show up on my Sony Bravia TV. If it shows on there, it streams.

I'm sure there are licensing issues involved, as others have said. Then there's the fact (as explained a while back by a TiVo employee) that Netflix has to have specialized "assets" (a different, additional format) for each movie/show in order for it to even play on a TiVo, which adds to their costs. Hulu can't even manage to integrate together what they have now.


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## muzzymate (Sep 2, 2004)

There is a quick glimpse of Hulu Plus results showing up in search in the latest Tivo Youtube video. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZETtWgxTlMg&t=0m31s[/media]

However, I recently switched back to the SDUI because the HDUI is still simply too slow for every day use so until that's resolved...


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