I signed up for Hulu today after posting a question here about streaming it on my Thrive. I am streaming it on our Wii and it looks and displays great. I am currently on a “free” trial for 10 days and will pay $7.99 per month after that. I have a few question since I am not familiar with Hulu, but am very familiar with Netflix.
1: the first show I am watching on Hulu is “House”, I haven’t seen it for years and am happy I can follow it again. However it seems that you can only go back a limited number of episodes. With Netflix, you could go back on almost all shows to the very first episode. Is this not’possible’with Hulu’or’am I doing it wrong?
2: The episode started out with a commercial and said 1/2, so I assuming there will be another sometime during the show. Once my “free” trial expirers and they start billing me will the commercialsduring the shows stop? Great, another one just started and apparently there are three in a row. That truly sucks, hopefully when billing starts, this will not be the case. One thing that makes Netflix so enjoyable is the total lack of ads.
3: I haven’t looked around’yet., but does Hulu offer a movie selection as well as’TV shows? Is the selection decent if so?
The main reason I joined Hulu was the access to current shows that Netflix doesn’t have. Any “reviews” or comments about Hulu would be appreciated so I can have information to make a decision on whether to’keep’the service. Thanks
Nope, this is common. It totally depends on the show, however. Each network and show negotiates a different set of rights. Sometimes you can only watch the most recent half dozen, sometimes you can watch everything but the current season, and in some particularly useless cases you can only watch one particular months-old episode at any given time.
The ads won’t go away. Again I think this is negotiated show-by-show, so some times you’ll only have to watch two or three 30 second spots during a one-hour episode. Other times you’ll watch five or six two minute spots…
There are some movies, but aside from a selection of old classics there’s not much at all.
Honestly though I’m still happy with Hulu, and it complements Netflix rather nicely. I can get movies and older episodes on Netflix, and anything I care enough to stay current with I can watch on Hulu and deal with the ads (which aren’t as bad as regular TV ads).
The most I’ve ever seen are 60 second ads, and usually they are shorter than that (30-45 seconds). It is nowhere near as bad as the 4-5 minutes you get watching live tv.
I’ve been on the no-pay Hulu for about a year. Some shows give me an option out front to watch a commercial and then skip some of the subsequent commercials.
The availability of episodes seems to come and go. I’m assuming it must have something to do with their licensing agreements.