hulu

Get a refurbished Sony Blu-ray player for $49.99

Need an inexpensive set-top box that can sling Netflix movies and TV shows, play tunes from Pandora and Slacker, and stream the latest YouTube videos? The Sony BDP-S270 can do all that for just $49.99 (after applying coupon code OUTLETBDPS270 at checkout).

Oh, it's also a Blu-ray player.

Funny how priorities change, right? Think about it: if I showed you a Roku box for $50, you'd probably snap it up. Well, the BDP-S270 streams a lot of the same services (Amazon Video on Demand, Hulu Plus, Vudu). And unlike a Roku box, it can play those quaint … Read more

Cloudy, with a chance of video

With Apple's iCloud coming next week, hot on the heels of Amazon and Google's cloud services for music, it seems like the years-old dream of cloud media streaming is coming to greater fruition than ever before. That's promising news to me, a person who cut the cord on his cable TV over a year and a half ago. I live off the Internet and my various devices--my laptop, game consoles, iPhone, and iPad--to get my media, be it TV shows, movies, music or books.

So far, it looks like 2011 will be more the year of Cloud Music than that of Cloud Video. And that's a shame, because I'm getting fed up with my half-baked digital-video life.

I've spent the last week with a product called Pogoplug Video, which attempts to do what no one's currently offering yet: the ability to stream multiformat video files easily across multiple platforms, be they gaming console, computer, or phone/tablet, even across the Internet or 3G.

I held high hopes for the Pogoplug Video. The $199 device is much like the Pogoplug Pro we reviewed last year, equipped with a more powerful processor. And, it does what it promises, to a point: video files stored on hard drives or USB sticks plugged into the Pogoplug do indeed technically play back on iPhones, iPads, laptops, or even via DLNA on an Xbox 360 or PS3.… Read more

Miramax brings ad-free films to Hulu Plus

Miramax and Hulu have signed a multiyear deal that will see some of the studio's top films come to the streaming-video service.

Starting today, Hulu Plus subscribers will have access to hundreds of ad-free Miramax films. Many of the titles will be available in HD, the company said, while the remaining titles will be available to users in standard definition. In addition, those who access the free Hulu will find a selection of 15 Miramax films to choose from. Those films, which will be rotated each month, will be ad-supported, the companies said.

Adding Miramax content to Hulu is … Read more

How bad is your HD?

A few weeks ago I asked how many people had given up on standard definition completely and only watch high definition. Interestingly, even though the majority of you had made the switch, it seems many were dissatisfied with the picture quality of their HD programming.

At the top of the HD quality pyramid is Blu-ray, of course. Lots of bandwidth, lots of storage, and pristine image quality are the hallmarks of what will surely be our last physical media format.

Quality degrades rapidly, though, as you change media. In many markets, the HD broadcast (over-the-air) signal is nearly as good as Blu-ray. But this isn't always the case. Many stations try to squeeze multiple channels within their allotted bandwidth (such as 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, and so on, all from the same station). This has a noticeable and negative effect on the quality.

Worse yet are cable and satellite TV, all of which have limited bandwidth to work with. Additional compression to fit in more total channels is the norm, as is adjusting the quality of more popular programming at the expense of the picture quality of less popular channels. Some providers are better than others, and I'd be very interested to read in the comments how you feel about the picture quality of your cable or satellite provider. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1474: More pain for Sony (Podcast)

Sony is expecting $3.2 billion loss for its fiscal year and Sony's BMG Greece music site is hacked revealing more customer data. Google's idea of being a truly open platform goes through more growing pains and HP creates a whole new numbering system. That's "one plus" for you my friends.

Hulu Plus finally hits TiVo

And it only took eight months. TiVo announced in September 2010 it would be adding Hulu Plus to its Premiere DVRs and here it is. Hulu Plus joins Blockbuster, Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, and YouTube on TiVo's roster of streaming video services.

Having had a chance to test it out, I found the interface looks the same as it does on other devices and is easy enough to navigate. It takes about 30 seconds to load up and start searching through content. Speaking of search, TiVo's search doesn't seem to be connected to Hulu just yet. By … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1471: Spoiler alert: Sony hacked again (Podcast)

Multiple rage-fits on today's show, as we discuss poor Sony's PlayStation Network being hacked again, patent trolls going after the entire app store market, the Winklevoss twins taking their hurt feelings all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and sweet little elementary school kids unable to have a school talent show thanks to the jack-boot of the culture of ownership. Good times. --Molly

The 404 821: Where the water's polluted with germs (podcast)

After a 26-day service outage, Sony finally kickstarted its PlayStation Network, allowing users to resume online gameplay. It turns out the original server hack was hosted on Amazon's EC2 Cloud Computing network, but the outages aren't over yet--the servers crashed again after being flooded for password resets.

In other news, the Internet organized a mean prank victimizing online daters in New York on Friday, so to make all you single dudes out there fell better, we go around the room telling our favorite pranking stories. Let us know if you have a good one!

The 404 Digest for Episode 821

Hiccups dog PlayStation Network restoration. Internet organizes cruel, but kind of funny, online dating prank.

Episode 821 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1459: Meat puppets behind the servers (Podcast)

It turns out that no matter how technologically savvy we get in the world, we could always be betrayed by the "meat puppets behind the servers." Thanks for that one, Donald. And human error does appear to be what happened to Amazon, and also the Yankees. DSLReports, on the other hand, just plain got hacked. And it would also appear there's no one equipped to help us with our little data leakage issues, since the FBI's own cyber-security agents admit they're not up to the task. But there's even worse news than that: the white iPhone is 0.2mm thicker than the black one. THE HUMANITY! --Molly

Free phones and farewell

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

Apple and Google will testify before Congress next month regarding smartphone privacy

Hulu Plus is coming to Xbox Live

Best Buy is giving away free phones until tomorrow

Research In Motion acquires a calendaring company called Tungle

The Jurassic Park video game will come out this fall on Xbox and PlayStation

Pepsi announces social vending-machines that let you gift sodas to your friends

And that does it for me! Natali Morris for CNET, signing out. Thank you for giving me the privilege of bringing you the news every day for the last 3 … Read more