Google in bidding war for Hulu?

[panteragstk]

Check this out. It seems that Google is in a bidding war with Microsoft and Yahoo for the purchase of Hulu. This could end up being pretty awesome for us in the end.

[fidget]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Check this out. It seems that Google is in a bidding war with Microsoft and Yahoo for the purchase of Hulu. This could end up being pretty awesome for us in the end.

I don't know what the studio's reaction would be. None of then are too happy with YouTube, so it may be very hard for Hulu to get licenses to stream all if the shows they currently do, once acquired.

[valnar]

I think Hulu and their equivalents are just flies buzzing around the studios heads. Right now they are a nuisance and they don't want to outright deny them access because that is bad PR. But that goes out the window if Hulu gets too big and starts affecting their bottom line. Yah, I know Hulu has commercials too, but the audience is so much smaller so those commercials couldn't possibly make as much money as broadcast TV. Lost eyeballs is lost revenue.

I don't know what Google is up to with their Sage and possible Hulu purchase, but Web video is not where I want to be at. They can pry my DVR from my cold dead hands when broadcast TV goes away. Until then, I'll take my ATSC/QAM 720p/1080i video over the compressed trash on the Web every day.

[PhilH]

Originally Posted by valnar

I think Hulu and their equivalents are just flies buzzing around the studios heads. Right now they are a nuisance and they don't want to outright deny them access because that is bad PR. But that goes out the window if Hulu gets too big and starts affecting their bottom line. Yah, I know Hulu has commercials too, but the audience is so much smaller so those commercials couldn't possibly make as much money as broadcast TV. Lost eyeballs is lost revenue.

I don't know what Google is up to with their Sage and possible Hulu purchase, but Web video is not where I want to be at. They can pry my DVR from my cold dead hands when broadcast TV goes away. Until then, I'll take my ATSC/QAM 720p/1080i video over the compressed trash on the Web every day.

+1 on prying my DVR from my cold dead hands.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by valnar

I think Hulu and their equivalents are just flies buzzing around the studios heads. Right now they are a nuisance and they don't want to outright deny them access because that is bad PR. But that goes out the window if Hulu gets too big and starts affecting their bottom line. Yah, I know Hulu has commercials too, but the audience is so much smaller so those commercials couldn't possibly make as much money as broadcast TV. Lost eyeballs is lost revenue.

I don't know what Google is up to with their Sage and possible Hulu purchase, but Web video is not where I want to be at. They can pry my DVR from my cold dead hands when broadcast TV goes away. Until then, I'll take my ATSC/QAM 720p/1080i video over the compressed trash on the Web every day.

Hulu is owned by the studios...

[valnar]

Ugh. That sucks. That means they are making inferior video on purpose. Somehow that seems worse to me.

[Zippster]

Aaaaaaaaaa run........the google is eating everything.

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by Zippster

Aaaaaaaaaa run........the google is eating everything.

Well, they lost in a bidding war for the 6000 patents from Nortel... Though I'm not sure that having Apple, Microsoft, RIM and so on win with a $4.5 billions bid is much better, considering how prone those are to sue other companies over patents...

[drewg]

Originally Posted by valnar

Ugh. That sucks. That means they are making inferior video on purpose. Somehow that seems worse to me.

The hulu video itself is actually pretty decent (H.264 720x400, 24fps with 2 channel aac audio for many shows), far better than what the cable company sends as 480i and what my local broadcasters put on their SD subs. The problem is the flashplayer. Back when the get_flash_videos hulu plugin worked, I could bypass the CPU sucking flash player and get about 2x the quality & and gain the ability to play back the videos on my HD300 without resorting to a hack like playon. Now that the cat is ahead in the cat & mouse game of breaking flash encryption, I need playon to watch hulu on my HD300 and the transcoded mpeg2 quality is not nearly so good. I may just need a faster box to run the Windows VM..


Drew

[mistergq]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

Well, they lost in a bidding war for the 6000 patents from Nortel... Though I'm not sure that having Apple, Microsoft, RIM and so on win with a $4.5 billions bid is much better, considering how prone those are to sue other companies over patents...

I am surprised I have not seen any articles about the anti-trust implications in the combo bid. This could create only 5 companies able to compete. While that is better than 1, 5 would be a horizontal restraint on trade.

[rwc]

Just to add to the rumor/speculation mill. Check this out http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...with-dish.html

So if it all came together it'd be a TiVo/sage/hulu/googleTv mix? not sure if it would be a good thing or a bad thing though. What do you think?

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by rwc

So if it all came together it'd be a TiVo/sage/hulu/googleTv mix?

So now you have the stand alone server with built in tuners, which can record with a cable card or external tuners, handles DRM when needed, some HD extender/GoogleTV clients, Android clients, online content... Talk about integration...

[IVB]

but would it play back ripped DVDs & BluRay? or even locally stored home videos?

that's my scary nightmare.

[baudfather]

Originally Posted by Fonceur

Well, they lost in a bidding war for the 6000 patents from Nortel... Though I'm not sure that having Apple, Microsoft, RIM and so on win with a $4.5 billions bid is much better, considering how prone those are to sue other companies over patents...

I thought Google would have had that deal in the bag, I was rooting for them. 2 years ago, before Android, who ever would have thought Microsoft, Apple, and RIM would be working together? Seems like the "Old Boys Club" don't want to let Google in.