Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

I was eager to see how Hulu worked w/ the Nokia N800.... I'm sorry to say that the answer is "not very well". It looks like Flash 9 on the Nokia is just not quite up to displaying Hulu video. Has anyone had a decent experience with Hulu? If so, what is your configuration?

Gary Walborn
gwalborn@gmail.com

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

Gary;

I was trying to get my Nokia N810 to work with Hulu just last night.

The first time I tried it BOTH the video and audio had a number of "drop outs" -- to the point that it was pretty much un-intelligible. On my second attempt, the audio played perfectly, but the video would freeze up and only display a new image every few seconds. It appeared that as I watched more and more of the episode the video continued to lag farther and farther behind.

I was definitely disappointed with the performance. I had not heard of HULU.COM before last night. I was simply channel surfing and noticed it on the G4.TV channel on that screwy "Attack of the Show" episode.

I hope someone can provide us with more information as to how to make this function on the Internet Tablet.

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

I had access to hulu in beta and on my 810 the audio was "spot on". the video framerate is too much for the n810...it is sorta fun to "watch" family guy in freeze frame

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

Well considering it's lagging on my 10mbit DSL connection and quad core box, I'd say you could be experiencing just about anything on the tablet :)

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

Anyone been able to use clipnabber (or some other youtube grabber) to capture Hulu files?

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

then i would say your system has issues. Perhaps your broadband connection
is not so broad. I was in on the Hulu Beta and had no issues at all. And I
aam on a lowly C2D T7200 w/4gb RAM.

The reason Hulu blows on the tablets is it's big pipe video, some is even HD. That
won't work well on the tablets. I did email the Hulu folks asking if they would consider
some lower bandwidth versions of their content.. Never heard anything back.

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

Good idea, brecklundin. I did the same!

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

great!! maybe if they get enogh interest from small device users it might get some
notice. can't hurt to try.. ;)

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

Bumping this. Anyone hear any new information or have any sucess running Hulu videos on your N810's?

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

I'm no help with the Hulu question, but I did get a Hava player and I can now watch my Dish DVR's programs on my N810 (and E71). Love it.

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

No luck with Hulu on my N810 either - its just too slow and stuttering video to be watchable. Audio is spot on and plays continously, but video is lagging behind.
I hope the new hardware for 'N900' will be better able to support online video - since that is a big thing now.

also noticed Boxee.tv came out with a boxee client for Linux. Of course it still is afar cry to expect such a client for the N810's (cause they require graphics support).

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

You shouldn't feel bad. The Hulu flash player kills even my regular PC. It's a resource hog and poorly designed. That's why I gave up watching them directly on the Hulu site and instead use a stream ripper to download them so I can watch them offline in a more cpu friendly application, such as VLC.

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

I second that -- Hulu generally works "fine" on my N810 -- but it's so flash-bloated that the poor little thing has trouble keeping up (sheesh -- that home page looks borrowed from the ADD-school-of-advertising). I noticed better behavior when I was down into my subscriptions -- but I second the above -- I'm generally not visiting Hulu since it's so flash-bloated it makes it hard for me to find the content ...

(now, that stream ripper approach ... hmm.....)

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

http://www.applian.com/recording_sol.../show_RCAT.php

Yeah, I use these guys. They're the best out there, even if they're not free. Eventually a FOSS app will come along that will do the same thing, but for now this is the only one I know that can rip hulu and all these others. If you don't have a Windows box, it works well in Wine.

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

I don't think Hulu has any interest in adding a pre-streaming test such as Netflix does. It seems their current focus is to deliver content to folks using Roku devices which is due out some time in late Q1-'09 or early Q2...

BTW, if you hunt for an "unofficial" Roku forum you will find it is possible to force different output quality but I know of no way to get that output across my network...d'oh!

One reason is likely that most mobile small device users are on a ridiculous 5GB/mo cap AND their EULA has some language restricting even use it to stream video content period. Basically their agreements separate web browsing from actually using the web for anything useful. Of course the whole area of pages with embedded video muddy those waters, hence the hard cap. Under the Hulu rules you could embed video in your own pages, visit the page watch the video and you are not in violation of the viewable content clauses in your MBB account acceptable use terms. Many so-called hotspots are adopting the same restrictions, especially those now under control of companies like AT&T. Even though content providers could easily offer small device streaming options.

That Hava Player sure looks interesting...I definitely want to look into more details as we have lots of bandwidth around here...still I have some questions on how it manages content and streaming to multiple clients. Also, how it might work with something like Hulu and the Netflix/RoKu combo...still it is a very interesting option to the Slingbox, especially since they go out of their way to mention the N8XX devices...as well as other TV locations in the house...interesting...THANKS!!

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

I've enjoyed hulu since the beta days and watch on an infrequent basis. As has been mentioned in this thread multiple times, it IS a resource hog. My experience is:

1. On my macbook pro with dsl connection - works very well. Enjoyable.

2. On my apple tv using couch surfer (again with dsl connection). Sound is great, video is "jumpy" but watchable for short periods. Overall, not so enjoyable.

3. On my N800 with home dsl. Sound is OK, video is almost useless.

4. On my N800 using a fat pipe Internet connection I sometimes have access to, sound is great, video is very 'jumpy' but almost watchable.

Given that the performance is marginal even on a one GHz apple tv, I doubt that hulu will ever be very useful on the NIT unless they decide to offer a lower resolution option for their videos.

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

hulu works great on my computer but you all could just use MyMediaPlayer. its an application for windows AIR that is made to play the hulu plarer on your destop. i don't know if this is any better but if it doesn't work i suggest PlayOn, a media server that plays hulu, youtube cnn cbs netflix it works great on canola2.

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

Really? For me, PlayOn makes extremely choppy audio and video is <1fps. I couldn't find any settings to fix this. Could you elaborate?

Re: Hulu performance (or lack of)
 

Hulu on my ATV with Boxee is not bad at all. I think my bandwidth sucks a bit so I have the occasional dropout. Now I just pause the show, let the buffer fill up and then continue. No big deal. Better than fifty million commercials.

I love my battery too much to even attempt Hulu on my 800.