Mobile web browser Skyfire is one of the only browsers around that lets users watch movies from online video site Hulu. Or rather, it was. WMExperts reports that Hulu has begun blocking Skyfire users.

This development comes on a long, protracted battle between Hulu and Boxee, a media center application for OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu Linux that provides access to web video from dozens of sources.

After killing Boxee support, Hulu eventually launched its own desktop application, cleverly called Hulu Desktop. Does this mean that Hulu might be working on a mobile viewing device? I wouldn't be surprised if the company simply wanted more control over how users can interact with the media on its web site. On the other hand, since Boxee, Skyfire, and most other applications that allow users to watch Hulu video leave the advertising intact, I can't see how it should make much difference to Hulu and the company's content partners how you watch the videos.

[via AppScout]

As Boxee announced the (long overdue) release of it's Windows version, geeks everywhere itching to cut the Cable TV cord -- presumably leaving the one connected to the cable modem alone -- sighed lovingly, and once again began to wax poetic on whether or not Hulu would come back to Boxee.

Even Avner Ronen, CEO of Boxee sounded hopeful in his quick interview with NewTeeVee.

I on the other hand, think all of you are nuts. Hulu is not (officially) available on your TV and it never will be.

Right now all of the content on web video service Hulu is free and ad-supported. But News Corp chief digital officer Jonathan Miller (formerly of Download Squad's parent company AOL), says that could change. Speaking at an event last night, Miller said some of the TV shows and movies on Hulu future could be made available only to paying subscribers in the future.

There are no plans to launch Hulu subscriptions at the moment, and Miller was just speaking in hypotheticals. But News Corp is one of Hulu's two primary backers (the other being NBC), so if he thinks subscriptions are a good idea, it might be time to start throwing a little money in a piggy bank for a Hulu day fund.

[via Digg]

Online video site Hulu has launched a desktop application for Windows and OS X that allows you to find and watch Hulu videos without firing up a web browser.

Hulu has been fighting a battle with media center application Boxee for months. Boxee is a desktop application that lets people interact with media on their hard drives or the web using a big screen interface that makes a good case for sticking your computer next to your TV. But Hulu's content partners like Fox and NBC make a lot more money when you watch TV shows through old fashioned TV broadcasts instead of on the internet, so I wasn't surprised to see Hulu disable Boxee support. But I was rather surprised to see Hulu launch its own desktop client today.

Hulu Desktop beta is designed to let you navigate Hulu from your couch, and it works either with a mouse and keyboard or a Windows Media Center or Apple remote control. You can use the desktop client to search for videos or browse through media by category. Videos can be viewed in full screen mode, and when you use the navigation tools to find additional programming the video will continue playing in a small window.

If you link Hulu Desktop to your Hulu account you can access your personal information including your Hulu queue from the desktop client.

Hulu Desktop is one of the first tools launched as part of a new Hulu Labs, a new experimental section of Hulu. Other Labs tools include the ability to browser for programs by original air date, video recommendations based on your viewing history, and video panel widgets.

Update: Oh yeah, before you ask... Hulu Desktop won't work outside of the US any better than the web version of Hulu does.

Hulu is a service that provides access to advertising-supported videos from TV and movie studios. Officially, it's only available to viewers in the United States, because Hulu only has the rights to distribute those videos in the US, and only has the advertising partnerships in place to make money from US views.

But the internet being what it is, a relatively small number of people have been using tricks to get around the geolocation restrictions, using proxy tools like Hotspot Shield for ages. This week, Hulu tightened its grip and started blocking access to anyone using anonymous proxy tools. In other words, Hotspot Shield ain't going to let you watch Hulu from the UK anymore.

I certainly hope this means Hulu plans to roll out international service soon, because the alternative for many users will be to turn to downloading movies and TV shows from BitTorrent or other services.

[via NewTeeVee]

The rumors have been swirling around for a few weeks, but today the Walt Disney Company officially announced that it is becoming an equity partner in Hulu. Disney, through a subsidiary of ABC Enterprises Inc., will join NBC Universal and News Corp. as an investor and content provider. Full-length episodes from ABC primetime, ABC Family and SOAPnet will be added to Hulu's content library, as well as classic ABC shows and select shows and movies from The Disney Channel. Essentially, ABC.com's streaming content will be coming to Hulu.

With the addition of ABC, three of the four major US television networks are now partners in Hulu. This leaves CBS and its TV.com venture all by its lonesome. As for YouTube, which is trying to get into the commercial content game, let's just say this move won't help the already anemic offering.

Despite the boxee nastiness (which has been mitigated, for now), Hulu continues to take off and is positioning itself as the defacto destination for online television viewing, provided of course, you live in the US. Having one robust platform is not only easier for viewers to navigate, it is easier to sell to advertisers.

The financial terms of the agreement weren't released, though I expect those details to emerge.

[via Mashable]

Over the last few years YouTube has successfully demonstrated that people will spend countless hours watching short user generated videos. But you know what else people like to watch? Professionally produced dramas, comedies, documentaries, cartoons, and news programs. Rival video site Hulu may not have anywhere near the audience that YouTube has, but it's choc full of professional video content (that you can only see in the US for the most part), which is much easier to monetize.

Now YouTube is stepping up its game, by offering content from TV and movie studios in a new section labeled "Shows." According to the New York Times, Google has signed agreements to distribute content from Sony, Lions Gate, CBS, MGM, and other studios.

The move will allow YouTube to place pre-roll, post-roll, and interstitial ads in video content, something it doesn't do with user generated videos.

Right now, the selection of TV shows and movies on YouTube is rather sad. Most of the content consists of old programs that you probably forgot existed, plus one new show from CBS: Harper's Island. Since Fox and NBC are the driving forces behind Hulu, it's not likely that we'll see their content on YouTube anytime soon. And there's talk that ABC could joing Hulu in the not too distant future.

Hot on the heels of the announcement that Hulu has hired a new VP in charge of international business, paidContent is reporting that Hulu has signed a deal to distribute several TV shows from the UK's Channel 4. But for now, they'll only be available to US viewers.

The deal covers several programs including Peep Show, Rude Tube, Queer as Folk, Green Wing, and Underbelly. The shows aren't available on the web site yet, but they should begin showing up soon.

There's still no word on when Hulu will launch in the UK, or why Hulu couldn't at least work out a deal to stream TV shows purchased from that country in Britain.

Online video site Hulu has become one of the most popular video portals in the internet over the past year. It showcases high quality content from major television and film studios with fewer commercials than you'd see if you watched the same programs on TV. But Hulu has faced one major hurdle: The company doesn't have deals in place to distribute that content outside of the US, which is why international users are typically met with a message telling them that videos aren't available when they visit the site.

Hulu's been planning to go global for a while now, but it looks like the company could be a bit closer. PaidContent reports that the company has hired a new vice president to oversee international operations.

It seems likely that one of the first areas outside the US that Hulu will be available will be the UK. What I'd love to see is a reciprocal relationship, where in addition to streaming US content to British viewers, Hulu could work out a deal to distribute BBC content in the US.

For the last decade or so people have been talking about how eventually the TV screen and computer monitor will merge. Over the last year or two, we've actually started to see that happen. More and more people are watching TV on their computers either using TV tuner cards or internet video from sites like Hulu. And computer apps like Boxee and set top boxes like Vudu are making it easier for people to watch internet content on their televisions.

Today both Boxee and Vudu announced new services. Vudu is partnering with internet radio station Pandora to allow users to stream personalized music stations over their TV/home entertainment system. And Boxee has launched an application for the iPhone that lets users turn their phone into a remote control for Boxee.

The Boxee iPhone Remote is available in the Boxee App Box, which was launched a few weeks ago. Boxee has been in the news a lot lately due to the company's battle with Hulu. After a bit of back and forth over whether Boxee users should be able to watch Hulu videos using the full screen Boxee browser for the TV (instead of visiting Hulu's web site using a computer), the folks at Boxee seem to be focusing on building a larger community of developers and applications around their platform. This weekend Boxee also announced support for Blip.tv content through a plugin available at the Boxee App Box.

Online video site Hulu opened its doors to the public (in the US, anyway) a year ago today. Since then, Hulu says its video library has grown 333 percent from 12,000 videos to 40,000 videos. It'd take you 7,1000 hours to watch it all. The site now has 130 content partners, which is more than twice as many as it had a year go. And the number of advertising partners has nearly quintupled.

Of course, the site has also begun limiting the way users can access videos. When Hulu launched, the company was pretty hands-off with web sites and services that embedded Hulu videos. After all, unlike YouTube, Hulu doesn't display advertising on its web site. Instead, video ads are embedded in each video and whether you're watching videos at Hulu.com or Download Squad, you still watch the ads. But in the last few weeks Hulu's content partners have pressured the company to shut down access to third party applications like Boxee that allow users to watch easily Hulu videos on a TV set.

In other news, Hulu has begun rolling out social features that could be either pretty cool or pretty creepy. Registered users can check a box that will allow their friends and contacts to see what they're watching on Hulu. On the one hand, it could be a nice way to share ratings, compare notes on TV shows and movies, and engage in a discussion. On the other hand, do you really want all of your Facebook, MySpace, or email (Gmail, MSN, Yahoo!) contacts to know what you've been watching?

Well that certainly didn't last long. This morning media center application Boxee launched a new build that has an integrated RSS reader that lets you watch online videos tied to an RSS feed. In other words, you can subscribe to RSS feeds for sites like YouTube, Google Video, and Hulu. You know, the site that asked Boxee to stop serving up its videos a few weeks ago.

The Boxee team figured that since the new build didn't mess with Hulu's service in any way, but simply used the publicly available RSS feeds to pull in videos just as you would if you were using a web browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer, that all would be kosher. Apparently they were wrong. Hulu today blocked access to Boxee's browser.

The move shouldn't be surprising. If the content owners that provide TV shows and films to Hulu didn't want Boxee serving up its videos in February, they don't want it doing so today either. Ultimately this means that Hulu's backers don't want to make it easy to watch the internet videos hosted on the site on your television. They'd rather you watch them the old fashioned way. You know, on your DVR while zapping past the commercials with your remote control.

A few weeks ago media center Boxee was forced to remove content from Hulu, and the request of some of the TV and film studios that produce the bulk of the content available on Hulu. Now Boxee is offering a new build that has a workaround that seems to be within Hulu's terms of service, and which may therefore be salvageable. Maybe.

Here's how it works. Boxee has launched a new build of its media center suite that includes an App Box, which is basically an App Store allowing users to find and install new applications and plugins. There's also a built in RSS reader optimized for feeds with video. It works with YouTube, Yahoo! Video, and Hulu.

In other words, as long as Hulu provides RSS feeds for its videos, you'll be able to find and watch them using Boxee. It's not as elegant a solution as the old built in Hulu support. But it will let you navigate Hulu using a full screen interface and a remote control instead of your keyboard. Unless Hulu eliminates its RSS feeds.

The new version also adds a much-needed auto-update feature.

The latest build is considered a "bleeding edge release," which means there may still be some (or a lot of) bugs to work out. The new version is currently available for Mac. No word on the Linux or Windows versions.

Update: The Linux version of Boxee should get the new features in a release scheduled for March 24th.

Update 2: Well, that didn't last long. While it's certainly nice to have a built in RSS reader, you can no longer use it to watch videos from Hulu. The site has blocked Boxee's browser.

The last time Download Squad took a look at MyMediaPlayer, Christina praised the concept of an Adobe AIR-based Hulu viewer, and the ability to watch shows and search for new ones at the same time. She also knocked MyMediaPlayer because it only showed the embedded versions of Hulu videos, which meant a serious restriction on viewing quality.

MyMediaPlayer 2 fixes that issue, adds Linux support, and is visually more appealing than the previous version.

Some of the new features in MyMediaPlayer 2 include a guide page for quick browsing of shows and movies, a full-screen TV listing mode, and, most importantly, full-screen video.

Since MyMediaPlayer shows Hulu content uncut and with all the ads, the main incentive to use it over your browser is the addition of nice little UI touches like these. It also only shows only full-length movies and shows, so you don't have to browse Hulu's endless clips for full episodes they don't carry.