Anyone Use PlayOn or Hulu - Plus??

[! twitty]

We are considering streaming options to replace our cable with. I am sick of paying $130 a month for cable alone. These are two options I have found and was curious if anyone has experience with either? I have an Xbox 360 I can use for both and also considered getting a Roku. Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Bapak2ja]

 

[Double T]

I have hulu. We like it, BUT one major caveat is that a bunch of shows we used to watch are not on there.

If you give me a list of shows, I will check this at home on the PC (at work now) and let you know if they are on there.

Also, some shows/networks require a 21/30/60 day delay before hulu can stream them.

I can tell you right now that it sure as hell does not beat any on demand service, nor does it beat a dvr. I am ditching Hulu and getting Cinergy fiberoptic Friday for tv/net. ATT has also started penalizing us for streaming everything and is throttling our connection. YMMV but I am a huge tech nerd, and I am/used to be a hardcore gamer.

Oh yeah, some shows can ONLY be streamed through PC (which is what we do on our monitor).

 

[Kagnew]

Play with a hoo-hoo?

 

[netsecurity]

I've had Hulu plus, and it wasn't that great last year. Everything I was interested in was either free anyways, or completely unavailable. Plus only allowed me to watch the same otherwise free shows on my tablet. Things may have changed significantly by now, but I'm not paying them again until they give me more for the money, like Netflix does. For example, even after paying for Plus, they still had those annoying commercial breaks!

 

[TopDog]

I also had Hulu plus, for me put bluntly, it sucked. It had nothing I wanted to see. As others stated some of what I wanted to see was free anyway.

I did however go with the Roku. My only complaint with Roku is it needs a search engine. Its hard to find good content. I do not regret getting the roku and subscribing to Netflix. I have found tons of programs and series I would never have seen otherwise. Like shows from Canada. Netfilx also could do with a better search engine.

 

[canav844]

We have hulu plus, we dumped cable TV 2 months ago; we watch a handful of shows on hulu; the rest we get from the networks or watch live on the 4 networks we get, I haven't even gotten to the point of using my computer as a DVR for the networks yet. The Olympic coverage is going to be a little tough, we don't get all the F1 we want, and football season is going to be a bit of a challenge, but it's driven home more than anything that the cable/sat is all a luxury. I'm yet to see a hint of us hitting a point of needing to be throttled back. With the DVR I felt like I'd have to sit down and watch and clear out alot of it, with the internet services there isn't that pressure, I'll go several days to weeks without then kick it on for 2 hours and be done with it; my girlfriend watches a show on her phone with while she gets ready for work and it's a coin flip between a hulu episode or a kindle book in the evening or on downtime on the weekend. For $10 a month I much prefer what I get with hulu vs the netflix streaming that we demo'ed for a month then dumped because we weren't watching it.

That leads to the last real point, most of these services offer a demo or trial period, see if they have stuff you like or not before making that final decision. I know some folks that just can't make it work for what they watch; I'm ready to go without tv or hulu before I shell any out more than $30 per month for TV programming.

 

[indytechnerd]

I have a Roku, Hulu+, and Netflix. Absolutely LOVE IT. TopDog is right, searching with the Roku sucks, but that's the only struggle. Only issues I find are if all of the other network attached devices in my house are running (Uverse here). That's the only time I've ever seen streaming lag.

 

[netsecurity]

If I had Netflix, and Hulu then Roku would aggregate the available content and simply let me see both content simultaneously? I have Netflix and Hulu apps on my TV's, so why would I need Roku? Sorry, I don't get the point of it, unless maybe you just didn't want to buy a blue ray player, which also has these apps built in.

 

[Donnelly]

We just signed up for Netflix streaming and are in our one month free trial period, but I can easily see us continuing on for 8.95 a month. I am loving it. I get to watch all the old Star Trek shows (Voyager, TNG, DS9) and that was a huge pull for me.

 

[netsecurity]

We just signed up for Netflix streaming and are in our one month free trial period, but I can easily see us continuing on for 8.95 a month. I am loving it. I get to watch all the old Star Trek shows (Voyager, TNG, DS9) and that was a huge pull for me.

Tip- as mentioned, the British and Canadian shows are pretty darn good too, at least their comedies are.

 

[PeaShooter]

If I had Netflix, and Hulu then Roku would aggregate the available content and simply let me see both content simultaneously? I have Netflix and Hulu apps on my TV's, so why would I need Roku? Sorry, I don't get the point of it, unless maybe you just didn't want to buy a blue ray player, which also has these apps built in.

Roku has many more channels than just these two. I don't know how many channels are being created for your tv or blueray player, but new channels are being created for the roku daily..

 

[4sarge]

Roku has many more channels than just these two. I don't know how many channels are being created for your tv or blueray player, but new channels are being created for the roku daily..

Love Our ROKU, Thousands of Channels, most are Free, no monthly charge except for Net Flix (our choice), didn't like Hulu+, do not understand PlayOn but they are now on ROKU. We have the TV's & BluRay with Internet Access BUT that is NOT ROKU

 

[netsecurity]

Roku has many more channels than just these two. I don't know how many channels are being created for your tv or blueray player, but new channels are being created for the roku daily..

I have two Samsung flat screens and three Samsung Blue Ray players, all of which have apps built-in. On most of my devices I can add new apps at any time (if they exist), very much like on an iPod. So is Roku for people who refuse to buy Samsung, or does it have some added benefit that I need to checkout?

 

[4sarge]

I have two Samsung flat screens and three Samsung Blue Ray players, all of which have apps built-in. On most of my devices I can add new apps at any time (if they exist), very much like on an iPod. So is Roku for people who refuse to buy Samsung, or does it have some added benefit that I need to checkout?

I'll up your TV & Blu Ray ante

 

[printcraft]

We just signed up for Netflix streaming and are in our one month free trial period, but I can easily see us continuing on for 8.95 a month. I am loving it. I get to watch all the old Star Trek shows (Voyager, TNG, DS9) and that was a huge pull for me.

We dumped cable last month too...... it was all trash basically. Way too much $$$ for crap content and the price kept increasing.

+1 for all of Star Trek's series running on there.
We just started watching Farscape from the beginning, the entire series is on there as well.

We are using a Wii on one set and a Samsung smart blue-ray on another to connect.

Note: Newer smart TV's are out there, they have all the apps built in
and are Wi-Fi so they will connect wireless to the internet, you don't
need any extra equipment to get Netflix or whatever.


Netflix for the win.
No ads either. If hulu+ runs any ads I'm not adding their service.

 

[Double T]

I don't mind hulu's ads, they are usually 2 30 second ads, and on the pc there are ways to avoid them.

Also, it helps with the buffering issues that sometimes occur in HD.