Roku adding a bunch of new channels (none being Hulu)

Roku is adding a slew of 10 new channels to their lineup, notably Pandora, Flickr, Facebook photos and blip.tv. It's this kind of value add that makes me thankful we went ahead with this route rather than wait for Sony to match Microsoft's Netflix offerings. We still use the Netflix channel pretty exclusively - but this new selection looks pretty interesting.

Not that I was expecting it - but Hulu would be such a perfect marriage for the Roku device. Hulu would instantly crank up their viewership and Roku would get a swath of decent material. It would be what The Office would refer to as a win-win-win. We won't get it, of course, because the TV industry doesn't want me watching Hulu on my TV and will go to absurd lengths to stop me from doing just that.

Even though, as previously mentioned, there is absolutely no way they can stop me from doing just that. It's like stupid was raised stupid, had a kid, and that kid was really stupid and then that kid married stupid and had a stupid child. Hulu is like stupid's grandfather.

Anyway, we'll be checking out the new channels when we get a chance.

How Hulu Is Kinda Stupid

It recently hit the street that Hulu is considering charging for their content. I suppose I can appreciate that, Hulu offers a lot of material which is quite valuable - recent shows, especially, for this age of time shifting. There's a decent amount there I'd access to catch up on some TV.

Which is why, if ad revenue is down and the powers that control Hulu need more cash, I have a recommendation other than forcing people to pay.

Stop being so damned stupid.

See, back in July, Hulu blocked the PlayStation 3 browser from accessing content. At first this was just done without much explanation, but then a very corporate non-answer arrived which takes a bit of brain pulling to translate (they use "windowing" as a term if it explains everything) - but in between the lines it comes down to "our partners pay for specific rights concerning television viewing, and threatened to pull out."

Specifically:

Distribution availability across platforms — theaters vs. TV vs. recorded media like DVDs vs. online streaming vs. mobile phones — was always implicitly or explicitly controlled in that world. But a few factors have made the barriers between those platforms more permeable: the rise of the web, increased broadband availability, the ease of digitizing video, and the increase in the computing
power of devices like gaming consoles, set-top boxes, and mobile phones.

However, in the near-term, the windowing strategy is still dominant in the business. Billions of dollars flow in across these different windows, and entire companies are organized around them. Nothing productive comes from flouting that reality (except to law firms who work on the occasional lawsuit).

Yeah. So this is why that is kinda stupid. Television industry types, listen up - because I'm only going to rant about this once.

Technology has converged your precious windows. Sorry about that, but it is really time to move on. Thanks.

See, I can watch your little television programs on my television using a computer any time I want. Heck, with the right cables - I can probably watch it with my iPhone. With some mad Linux skills, I could still do it on my PS3. This concept that my television is somehow under your control is so archaic that you make my old TiVo laugh. As if VCR's and DVR's shouldn't have been enough of lesson - the fact that my television is essentially a massive computer monitor at this point is just not that difficult of a concept to grasp.

See I have this Mac Mini. And it hooks right into my television. And it has a web browser. Which can play Hulu. So that kinda fscks your stupid windows concept right up.

But I don't watch Hulu on the Mini, because it is an older PPC model and the performance sucks. It worked pretty good on my PS3 - but now that's blocked. So now I don't watch Hulu.

And someone at Hulu is wondering why ad revenues aren't what they'd like them to be - but instead of the networks realizing this is nearly the year 2010, the whole thing is considering going to a pay-to-view model ... which is quite possibly they only way the thinking around the whole thing could travel any more backwards in time.

Sigh.

So yeah, go ahead and charge for Hulu. Let's see how that works for you. Or wake up to the modern world and just increase your current viewership.