Hulu: HTML5 Isn’t Ready for Prime Time

http://newteevee.com/2010/05/13/hulu-html5-isnt-ready-for-prime-time/

by whyleym • 16 years ago

44 50 16 years ago

jcapote• 16 years ago

Rather, Hulu isn't ready for HTML5.

Qz• 16 years ago

Hulu is an established platform, HTML5 is an upcoming spec that doesn't do what Hulu would need it to do. As cute as your post sounds (and we all love a pithy inversion), it's just wrong.

pquerna3• 16 years ago

HTML5 video will never be acceptable by people who believe that DRM in Video is a requirement.

Fortunately, those people have over the last few years been proven more and more to be ignorant of what the wider market wants -- and the video-industry overall isn't being as stupid as the music industry, but fundamentally, they will try to hold on to DRM'ed video content for as long as possible, which is something that HTML5 streaming of video content will never allow.

Speaking as an ex-jooster, there are lots of things you can do to create white picket fences when streaming over HTTP, like one time tickets, dynamic rate limiting to prevent mass ripping[1], etc. At best these limit people 'stealing' content to doing it in real time, and makes it hard to 'rip' an entire site.

Today that is the situation even Flash is in -- there are lots of tools out there to steal content from Hulu in 1:1 time, and they could do it over HTTP for effectively the same protections, but the content owners still believe in the illusion that they have more viable white picket fences, which Adobe is happy to sell to customers in FMS: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/protec...

[1] http://svn.apache.org/viewvc?view=revision&revision=7219...

abstractbill3• 16 years ago

Hulu's video player is rock-solid. If they say HTML5 isn't good enough, I am inclined to take what they say seriously.

roc3• 16 years ago

The thing to note is why they say it isn't good enough.

The argument essentially boils down to: the studios and the advertisers are their customers: the studios don't like the lack of perceived control over the data stream and the advertisers don't like the loss of finer-grained reporting on data-stream consumption.

strooltz• 16 years ago

I would disagree with this. I think it's reliable but all too often i find that i have to restart the videos, advertisements fail to load, and it takes a while to start up. Don't get me wrong - i think it's great and i use it almost daily, however saying it's video player is rock solid is definitely an overstatement.

not_an_alien3• 16 years ago

People are assuming this is all about DRM, but there's a lot more than that. Interactive features, as well as tracking - all very possive with HTML5/JS, just more painful to work with. Not to mention things like fullscreen which are not even supported by the HTML5 side.

Hulu could easily implement an HTML5 player if they wanted - their catalog is already in H264. But the experience would suffer, and as such, they're just not doing it instead of jumping on a bandwagon that's poised for a trainwreck.

njharman• 16 years ago

Their player is far from rock solid.

If I use the "wrong" DNS servers it claims I'm not from the USA. It's rather low quality/slow on my platform. I don't think the in browser player works at all.

adamhowell2• 16 years ago

Is there a way yet to lock down the source file with HTML5 video in the same way that, say, Typekit locks down font files?

halo• 16 years ago

I certainly hope not.

adamhowell2• 16 years ago

Right, I'm not saying there should be or that I want there to be, but a) this entire post can be translated as "We're not using HTML5 because there's no DRM" and b) even though it's not a business I'd want to be in, certainly seems to be a market opportunity for it

wmf• 16 years ago

Considering that TypeKit is just JS with some server-side stuff, there's not much that it could do; I'm sure you could craft some hack to do the same thing with <video>.

Edit: pquerna answered this better than I did: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1344880

j_baker• 16 years ago

The blog post itself seems to have been pulled, but here's a cached version: http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=http%3a%2f%2fblog.hulu.com%...

lenni2• 16 years ago

I read it as "HTML's <video> doesn't have DRM". However, his concern about streaming and buffering capabilities seem valid. I'm assuming this will be improved as time moves on.

JunkDNA• 16 years ago

Well, the lack of support for DRM is always going to be an issue as long as content producers insist on having DRM. I know we've all been 'round this tree before, but I continue to be genuinely perplexed that they still insist on DRM. Network TV is broadcast over the air unencrypted to begin with. Why is the internet so special that all that same exact content has to be locked down? It's like a bank building a safe with several feet of reinforced concrete on the top, bottom, and sides, but putting a plywood door on the front.

lenni2• 16 years ago

I guess the answer to this question is: Because they can. TV watchers would be furious if they had to buy a set top box to decrypt something that used to be unencrypted.

smhinsey2• 16 years ago

I'm pretty sure that this is exactly the case in the US, at least. You do need to buy a box to watch over the air broadcast after the digital transition, although technically it is probably encoded rather than encrypted.

andreyf• 16 years ago

Network TV is broadcast over the air unencrypted to begin with. Why is the internet so special that all that same exact content has to be locked down?

Because the devices that generally connect to the internet are good at storing and re-transmitting content, whereas TV's aren't.

w1ntermute• 16 years ago

Not like it stops a select few individuals from recording OTA content and making it available online anyway. All it takes is one source to make the video available, so DRM really is pointless.

TorKlingberg• 16 years ago

What about DVRs, DVD recorders and good old VCRs?

ube• 16 years ago

I think that your analogy is almost on the mark but it needs one little tweak: "It's like a bank building a safe with several feet of reinforced concrete on the top, bottom, and sides, but putting a plywood door on the front which looks like reinforced concrete."

The reason for this tweak is that content is king and the content providers know it. Hulu by itself without content is yet another website - just a shell (recall Hulu's tears when Comedy Central pulled its shows).

Hulu's goal is to make content providers feel that their content is secure. Only when they do this will they get the content and have more content providers sign on. Consequently, it is in their best interest to perform a song and dance routine on how securing content is their number 1 goal.

CoryMathews• 16 years ago

Its about time a major video provider stands up for the current limitations of HTML5. I'm glad to see them do this and I would love to hear some BS response from jobs on why they are wrong.

weixiyen2• 16 years ago

Basically, as of today, HTML5 video isn't ready. We all knew that.

The guy goes on to say that technology moves at a fast pace and they haven't ruled out HTML5.

Google's rumored VP8 release at I/O will help catapult it into prime time.

DRM is pointless imo, the sooner the networks realize that, the better.

not_an_alien3• 16 years ago

Basically, as of today, HTML5 video isn't ready. We all knew that.

Tell that to the people that think HTML5 is 100% supported, that technologies like Flash aren't needed, and that Youtube has actually moved to HTML5.

raganwald• 16 years ago

Bruce Schneier's expression Security Theatre really describes video DRM. It's to provide the illusion of control, to reassure content intermediaries that their business model is safe regardless of whether it is or isn't.

kilps• 16 years ago

My first thought on reading the title was that they don't want the content accessible from the iPad so that they could charge for an app.

The other reasons discussed make sense (merits aside), but I still wonder.

Groxx• 16 years ago

I would think they'd be best-off with writing their own software as a plugin... though granted, that's more work than coding it once for Flash. It's one of the things which Flash is really quite nicely suited for.

But if they're interested in offering higher quality w/ lower bandwidth and lower CPU usage on more machines, Flash is definitely not the way to go if you're making a custom DRM. Video decoding isn't exactly its strong point.

Hulu: HTML5 Isn’t Ready for Prime Time

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