Hulu Plus out of Beta; On Roku for $7.99 a month

The Hulu Plus subscription service out of preview, and announced two items of note last week:

• First, the monthly price for Hulu Plus moving forward is just $7.99. Any current subscribers who joined during our preview period will receive a credit for the difference from the $9.99 preview price. This credit will automatically be applied to their next billing cycle.
• Hulu Plus launches on Roku. All PlayStation 3 owners with a PlayStation Network account, which is free, can download the Hulu Plus application. In the months to come, Hulu Plus will be coming to Internet-connected Vizio, LG Electronics, and Panasonic Blu-ray players and HDTVs; TiVo Premiere DVRs; the Xbox 360; and Western Digital’s WD TV Live Hub Media Center and WD TV Live Plus Network Media Player, with many more mobile phones, tablets, set-top boxes, and Internet-connected devices to be announced.
  

Hulu is offering several special offers:

• One free week trials for all new subscribers. In addition, current subscribers who joined during the preview period will receive a credit for one week of Hulu Plus toward their next month’s subscription.
• Two free weeks of Hulu Plus for both current subscribers and friends they invite through our referral program. Subscribers can learn more by clicking on the “Referrals” tab on their Hulu profile page.
• 11 weeks ($20 worth) of free Hulu Plus with the purchase of a Sony BRAVIA connected TV or Blu-ray player through January 31, 2011. (See sony.com/huluplus.)
• One free month of Hulu Plus with the purchase of a Roku device through December 15, 2010.

Digital video player news - WD TV Live Hub. Roku and Netflix, VUDU and the Boxee Box

Last week was a busy week in the digital video player market, with product introductions or extensions made from Western Digital, Roku and NETGEAR, and the Boxee Box and VUDU.

• Western Digital introduced the WD TV® Live Hub™ media center a 1080p media player with a 1 terabyte (TB) built-in network hard drive that gives users the freedom to play all their personal media on any screen in the home. The WD TV Live Hub media center brings new experiences to the WD TV family, including instantly renting or purchasing the newest releases through the Blockbuster On Demand® service, the same day as DVD/Blu-ray release, as well as interacting with personal Facebook® communities.
• Roku announced that is was licensing its Streaming Media Player Platform, and further announced NETGEAR as its first OEM Partner. The NETGEAR Roku Player - priced at $89.99 - will provide access to more than 100,000 movies and TV shows, live sporting events, music, online content from providers such as Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, Vimeo, Pandora, MP3tunes, SmugMug, Flickr, MLB.TV ,and UFC.
• VUDU will be available via Boxee, including the Boxee Box. VUDU will be available as a Boxee App on Windows and Mac computers, as well as the Boxee Box by D-Link this November
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Roku and Clearleap - Paving the way for premium content on low-cost CE devices

My first summer at Parks Associates (twelve years agao this month) was characterized by a monthlong heatwave and zero rain for several weeks in a row. It was also my first introduction to consumer-oriented home networking technologies - it seemed that there was a new announcement regarding powerline, wireless, coax, twisted-pair or other types of home networking technology. It was quite an introduction into the dynamic consumer technology space.

I'm reminded of the milestones of 1998 this week, where we've seen some major announcements between online video content management companies and consumer electronics manufacturers. Plus, it's been hot and dry ... again!

Today, Clearleap announced a partnership with Roku to bring premium television content to the Roku box. The arrangement will leverage Clearleap's cloud-based universal video platform for content management and service delivery, giving pay TV operators and premium programmers a seamless opportunity to offer content and generate additional revenues with a branded Channel on the Roku player.

Roku expands content to include Amazon Video On Demand

Roku is now able to show Amazon Video On Demand content on its Roku Digital Video Player.
Beginning in early 2009, the Roku Player, which currently supports only the Netflix service, will offer access to Amazon Video On Demand’s more than 40,000 commercialfree movies and television shows enabling Roku customers for the first time to watch new release movies titles instantly.

Roku does HD content from Netflix

News today that the Netflix Player now supports high-definition streams. A software update will be sent to the $99 boxes already in homes in the next few weeks. Roku says that more high-definition content providers will be added in the first quarter of 2009.

I've got to think that this box is going to be under a few Christmas trees on Thursday morning.

Wall Street Journal Review of Netflix-at-the-TV Devices

Last week, the Journal had a review of some of the consumer electronics products that can access Netflix Internet video content at the TV. They looked at the Roku player, the Xbox 360, and the LG Blu-ray player. Looks like the Roku player came out on top. The Xbox's loud fan annoyed the reviewer (and the game controller was not the optimal control) and the LG Blu-ray player apparently had issues with dropped home network connections.

Netflix: Watch Now (and easily)

When you work with bleeding edge technologies, you tend to lose a lot of blood. Who of us hasn't had a frustrating experience with a new device that promised to make our life simpler (albeit via a very complicated path). Well today I wanted to share a good experience.

I spent much of the past two weeks on the road which (predictably) included about 15 hours in flight delays. In my ill-prepared haste, I had left without a book, DVD, iPod or other means of mobile entertainment. As I sat there under the flight info terminals, enlightenment suddenly hit me. I'm a Netflix subscriber and have access to a collection of online movies that I could conceivably watch on my laptop... would it work? I had only used the streaming 'Watch Now' feature once before and was unsure. I turned on my laptop, connected it to a free WiFi hotspot and within minutes was watching a nice Frontline documentary. The quality was good especially considering the fact that I was using an unsecured public WiFi network.

Mildly impressed, the icing on the cake came a few days later when I tried to finish watching the program. I booted up a different computer, in a different city, logged in, and the film started playing right where I had left off. Very nice indeed... I may end up trying one of the new Roku boxes at this rate.