Britain's Hulu gets clearance

[Ginger Yellow]

OfCom OKs YouView. I'm a bit surprised, since they vetoed its forerunner, Project Kangaroo. Maybe they've realised how idiotic that decision was.

[ad hoc]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

Is Hulu a good thing then? I think my attitude to these things is formed entirely by my lack of access. The moment I see the word "Hulu" I know it's basically closed to me so I just close the site. Hence "Hulu" has a hugely negative connotation in my mind. i-player less so because I have actually watched that in the UK, but it still is one of those things that irritates me about the increasingly insular internet.

[Ginger Yellow]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

Well obviously it's only a good thing if you have access. Same's true of the iPlayer.

As for whether it is a good thing if you do have access, I can't see why not. It's not perfect, but it's free (ie relatively unintrusive ad support), legal and has a far better range of current and archived shows than you'd expect a similar service in Britain to have. And given that at the moment the only realistic way to legally watch most US TV even vaguely contemporaneously from the UK is a costly Sky subscription or buying individual episodesat ridiculous cost from iTunes, I'd say it would definitely be a good thing to have it over here.

it still is one of those things that irritates me about the increasingly insular internet.

I don't think you can blame the internet for this one. After all, with a bit of fiddling you can access Hulu from outside the US, whereas you can't watch US TV. Blame the shortsightedness of media companies who are throwing away advertising money that international audiences could be attracting, but instead are turning to piracy.

[ad hoc]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

Well, I'm not blaming the Internet, more the companies that are trying to make content exclusive based on national boundaries. Just tried to open a YouTube video and got the message "This video is not available in your country". I hate all that. It seems like the internet was this explosion of access to whatever you wanted from wherever you wanted, and in the recent past it's contracting and will soon be limited in just the same way that TV is - you get what is available in your country only.

[ursus arctos]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

It is annoying, but it is just another aspect of the whole rather Quixotic battle to "monetise content", and, as GY points out, is relatively easy to get around if you are willing to invest some time and/or money (in addition to proxy servers, there are a lot of streams and torrents available).

Personally, the "market-based solution" I would welcome is one where I could try my location-based access to Hulu (which I have zero interest in) for access to Iplayer and certain of its continental equivalents.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

But why should people outside the UK have access to the iPlayer when they're not paying the license fee?

(And I'm someone who would happily pay to be able to watch BBC programmes online.)

[ad hoc]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

Well, so would I. But now I don't even have that option.

And as someone who is probably about half way along the totally tech-savvy - tech-thicky continuum, the use of proxy servers is far from easy (and in fact I have given up trying)

[Ginger Yellow]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

It's pretty easy to set up a free proxy server for the US (just install Hotspot Shield and run), though it can be very slow. Getting a more flexible or faster one up and runing is more complex and expensive.

As for the iPlayer question, why couldn't it be ad or subscription supported internationally, run out of BBC Worldwide?

[ursus arctos]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

Stumpy, I'm still paying the licence fee in Italy (don't ask), and yet I can't access Italian content from the US.

Just another example of the "market" not working.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

Free proxy servers are a dead loss in my experience. I was toying with the idea of signing up for a paid one (£6.95/month).

I did read some talk of the BBC offering the iPlayer abroad as a paid service, but I don't know if anything will come of it.

[Ginger Yellow]

Britain's Hulu gets clearance

did read some talk of the BBC offering the iPlayer abroad as a paid service, but I don't know if anything will come of it.

As far as I know all they're doing is finding a way to allow UK license fee payers to access it abroad. I read something about how they're not planning to offer it to foreigners because of identity checking issues. Why they need to care about identity when thy could just charge them a fee and give them a login like every other web company in the world is beyond me.

Separately, though there's a plan to open up the iPlayer technology to other broadcasters, but it's at an earlier stage.