Hulu Finally Adds Downloads For Offline Mobile Viewing (variety.com) 16
Hulu is finally allowing users to download TV shows and movies to their mobile devices to watch without an internet connection. Variety reports: The download feature, which has been several years in the works, gives Hulu subscribers on the $11.99 no-commercials plan the ability to download tens of thousands of TV episodes and movies. It's not available to customers who have the entry-level $5.99-per-month package with ads. For now, it's available only on Hulu's iOS app for Apple devices. The company says the feature will be coming to the Android app "soon."
The majority of Hulu's catalog, which includes some 85,000 total TV episodes, is available for offline viewing. That includes most Hulu originals, including full seasons of "The Handmaid's Tale," "Veronica Mars," "Shrill" and "The Act" as well as licensed content including "Family Guy," "Desperate Housewives," "This Is Us," "How I Met Your Mother" and "ER." A Hulu rep would not specify how much content is available to download for offline viewing, or spell out which TV shows or movies aren't included. The reason some content is excluded is that some of Hulu's past deals did not contemplate download rights. According to Hulu, customers can download a maximum of 25 titles across five different devices. Downloads are available for up to 30 days; they will expire two days after a user starts playback. After downloaded content expires, viewers can renew an expired download when they're connected online (assuming the content is still available on Hulu). The move comes nearly three years after Netflix added the feature , and four years after Amazon Prime Video added that ability for both iOS and Android apps. Disney Plus, which is launching on November 12, will also include content downloads.
The majority of Hulu's catalog, which includes some 85,000 total TV episodes, is available for offline viewing. That includes most Hulu originals, including full seasons of "The Handmaid's Tale," "Veronica Mars," "Shrill" and "The Act" as well as licensed content including "Family Guy," "Desperate Housewives," "This Is Us," "How I Met Your Mother" and "ER." A Hulu rep would not specify how much content is available to download for offline viewing, or spell out which TV shows or movies aren't included. The reason some content is excluded is that some of Hulu's past deals did not contemplate download rights. According to Hulu, customers can download a maximum of 25 titles across five different devices. Downloads are available for up to 30 days; they will expire two days after a user starts playback. After downloaded content expires, viewers can renew an expired download when they're connected online (assuming the content is still available on Hulu). The move comes nearly three years after Netflix added the feature , and four years after Amazon Prime Video added that ability for both iOS and Android apps. Disney Plus, which is launching on November 12, will also include content downloads.
Finally ! (Score:2)
We Welcome you to 2005 Hulu !
So? (Score:1)
They Aren't Really "Downloads" If They "Expire"... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When you say download, I expect to get an .MP4 or .MKV file I can play wherever.
Why? That's not what that word means.
Re: (Score:2)
No
Now (Score:2)
Now if only the web streaming video didn't look like complete ass compared to video played through the Win10 app on the same computer, that would be cool.
thank goodness for bittorrent .. (Score:2)
... now if only copyright weren't so corrupt, we wouldn't have our culture held captive by unethical greedy corporations and their masters. Wasn't technology supposed to help mankind???
What do you mean "adds downloads"? (Score:2)
How would you evem watch it, without downloading it?
Or are you seriousl SO clueless, that you think streaming is something different and magical, that never downloads the data to your computer?
It is your computer, right?
Because then, all you need to do, is to tell your CPU to keep the download and ignore requests to delete it.
You know how to use a computer, right?
</in-a-sane-world>
Your computer vs. streaming (Score:2)
It is your computer, right?
For it being "your computer" it means that you should be able to run any fucking thing that flies through your mind. /.er would consider as "a computer".
i.e.: what a
Because then, all you need to do, is to tell your CPU to keep the download and ignore requests to delete it.
The problem is, that action has to be banned, in order to a computer to be eligible for streaming.
So thanks to the magic of DRM, you are in theory only capable of streaming on a computer that isn't truly yours. Or you'd be breaking your local jurisdiction's variant of the DMCA laws (e.g.: if you used a patched version of the DRM plugin that acce
remind me i need to cancel hulu (Score:2)
there are other worlds (Score:2)
I use a firefox plug-in like Video Download Helper [mozilla.org].
And I've been busy poking around various ad-supported sources of video, such as, for anime: animedao [animedao.com], or for live drama (mostly asian including Korean): gooddrama [gooddrama.to], dramagalaxy [dramagalaxy.tv], kissasian [kissasian.es], etc.
Not to mention the usual youtube etc. And, come to think of it, DVDs which I sometimes buy, and often borrow from the library (e.g. Doctor Who).
I don't as of yet do hulu, netflix, or even viki. I don't know where I would find the time.
But I'm sure you will a
Streaming is still not the product. (Score:2)
I don't know why or how streaming became popular compared to torrents. I guess I vastly underestimated peoples technical ability when dealing with torrents and some simple HDD storage.
And its already known that most people don't know streaming services are all on a knifes edge of 'necessary' bitrate since that costs them more bandwidth. They also are not aware of the network peak hour they create during the evening.
Until such a service opens that allows download of individual episodes, in AV1 wrapped in MKV