How long will it take 20th Century Fox to shut down /Film if I post an entire feature length film? Let’s find out. Below you can watch all one hour and twenty one minutes of their popular computer animated family comedy Ice Age. I know, not a great film selection, but I thought this experiment would be more interesting with a big budget animated film.
Okay, so the headline is a little sensational, and the question is very loaded because Fox will not be shutting down /Film, at least not because I posted Ice Age. What if I told you that Fox is not only letting only letting us post their films on /Film for free, but they want you to post their films on your websites/blogs as well.
No, seriously… Not only can you watch Ice Age on /Film, but Lionsgate, Fox, and Universal have launched a new website hulu.com where you can watch 75 feature length films online. Sure, they have limited commercial interruption, but it’s legal and free. Some of the movies you can even stream in 480p.
But it just has a bunch of crappy movies right? Okay, for the most part, the quality of the film selections is not that great, but some of the better choices include: Hulu also offers full-length feature films like The Usual Suspects, Ice Age, Three Amigos!, The Big Lebowski, Mulholland Drive, Man on the Moon, Killing Zoe, The Jerk, October Sky, Requiem for a Dream, and Sideways. They also have hundreds of movie clips from a larger selection of films. Hulu also offers full-length episodes of current primetime TV shows such as The Simpsons and The Office the morning after they air, as well as classics like Miami Vice and Who’s the Boss?.
Yes, Fox is still evil, but I’m actually really digging this new on demand revolution. The system is far from perfect, but it’s definitely a nice start.
Discuss: What do you think of Hulu?
March 14th, 2008 at 12:37 am
It’s like Joost, but with support from some major corporations. And nothing to download.
Shiny.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:41 am
I’ve been waiting for this day.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Not available in “My Region” = Canada? Boo.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:19 am
This is a really cool idea, and I think it’s a sign that maybe, just maybe, studios are starting to come to their senses. It would be funny of the abundance of free, legal online content ended up cutting back on DVD theft…not that anyone would bother making the connection, of course. But hulu is definitely the beginning of the revolution.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Hulu.com is limited to the U.S. due to the infringement worldwide access would constitute to the geographically segmented distribution market. Localized content providers (in the form of TV channels, dvd rentals and sales, etc.) would be completely bypassed by open access. Which sounds like a good idea – in theory. However, all media companies have marketing myopic tendencies. In the case of the U.S. movie studios and television networks, they know their market extremely well (in terms of advertising connections and knowing the habits of the american consumer), but they are almost completely lost when it comes to foreign markets. Still, a large portion of their revenues comes from abroad. Conclusion; They need localized actors as agents on the foreign markets, and can therefore not open hulu.com for worldwide access.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:09 am
Surprisingly nice site with a ton of content. Not bad at all.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Yet again:
Not available in “My Regionâ€
USA 1 UK 0
booo thats sux!
March 14th, 2008 at 2:48 am
Well it’s not available in the UK. Which always seems to be the case. Always surprises me, since well bar from Canada, we’re the closest thing to America in terms of culture and obviously the language. You’d think since we’re such a close match, they’d market stuff to both of us.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:17 am
I resent that anyone would suggest the UK is a close match to US culture, has it really got so bad in Blighty?
March 14th, 2008 at 6:33 am
They have Master and Commander over there at the hulu too. That’s certainly not bad. Oh yeah but they also have Weekend At Bernies…
March 14th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Not available in Canada, never will be :( Guess i’m stuck with piracy.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:31 am
There is a God!
March 14th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I think this is a HUGE step towards the future. I can’t stand paying a cable company for useless channels and content. This lets me watch current shows and support only the ones that don’t suck.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:39 am
They don’t like us Brits. :(
March 14th, 2008 at 7:52 am
I heard about Hulu last week and before even venturing to the site I knew that it’d take a bit of techno-savvy to get it working here in Canada.
My initial thoughts are that it is a watered down version of stage66 from DivX. It still is a huge step forward when it comes to online streaming content (albeit being region locked)
March 14th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Ugh. I bet there version of Requiem for a Dream is edited.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:18 am
More proof that Hollywood movies are made solely for Americans.
See, Peter WAS right!
;)
March 14th, 2008 at 8:24 am
All I have to say is if Viacom pens a deal with them I may be up sh*t creek with out a paddle with my job.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Requiem for a Dream is NOT edited, you have to log in to see ‘adult’ content but it’s a full R flic.
March 14th, 2008 at 9:09 am
If I am not mistaken, the edited version IS the R version.
March 14th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Re: region-specific releasing.
Starting to get sick of all this fanfare over new content-delivery systems that are US-only. The UK xBox Live movie rental service has about 30 films, iTunes/AppleTV won’t do movies at all, Unboxed doesn’t work, neither does Netflix… And yet the UK’s non-theatrical market is particularly strong - let me cite Donnie Darko’s success in UK DVD sales as a prime example.
When will the nightmarish fragmentation of geographically-based distribution rights catch up with this new-fangled interwebs thing and go global?
March 14th, 2008 at 9:57 am
dude, i gotcha back if they start any shit!!!
March 14th, 2008 at 10:19 am
People watch films in the UK as well.
March 14th, 2008 at 10:36 am
They have the entire third season of “Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia” . Thats pretty cool considering its not out on DVD yet.
March 14th, 2008 at 10:45 am
not available in Russia. too bad for them. :)
March 14th, 2008 at 11:38 am
The end of DVD i loved em come on dont tell me Blue ray is just a storage device.
Ok how will i download it to my PC directly ?
March 14th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
and as i saw quest for fire was in there i thought, COOL! ive been dying to see that for ages as it hasnt been released on region 2 dvd yet…. what do i see, Not available in “My Region†bleh.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hey all you UK peeps,
I can’t watch bbc programming on TV or on the bbc.co.uk sites in the US. So I feel you’re pain. BBCAmerica lets some stuff through, but it is soo friggin delayed.
What’s the deal with the separation, I’d pay $$ to have all the BBC channels via satellite if they’d let me. Perhaps, they should set something like that up for online stuff.
Just a thought.
March 14th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
So I can’t download this to my iPod, I have to sit through commercials, and it’s region encoded?
The Pirate Bay is still free, right? Okay, just making sure.
Another failure from the entertainment industry. Lovely! Because (and I can’t speak for all of you, of course) I simply love staring at a web page for 90 minutes watching a movie in a little box. Heaven forbid we’re allowed to GASP burn it to a DVD and watch it on the TV! Or take it with us on the bus. Or, you know, DOUBLE GASP remix it! This is hardly news worthy. If this was old media, I’d swear /Film was getting a nice payout for pimping this trainwreck called Hulu.
Gotta wonder how many times a multi-billion dollar company can screw up something as simple as media distribution. I mean, the dude who created Napster was a stupid college kid.
March 14th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Not available in my region blah blah blah… Does that mean Afghanistan and Iraq can view them since they’re currently being occupied by the USA? Is that a region of the USA>? I’m only in fucking Canada…. So I guess not. Please invade us so I can watch your elite television.
All those flicks should be available on torrents by now anyways…No hassle, no fucking commercials….They wanna make some money off downloads..put your adds on the official FOX torrent site and end it there. FFS most of them are still available on VHS… an officially dead format.
March 16th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Not available in my country either. I guess I’ll just stick to my regular pirated movies; they’re great quality anyway.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Yeah I’m Canadian so this doesn’t apply to me. That kind of sucks.
July 5th, 2008 at 6:19 am
How its going?
July 19th, 2008 at 11:10 am
http://www.hairstylestop.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/heidi1.jpg
Oh what I wouldn t give to have been a fly on the wall during this luncheon. Here is Heidi Montag having lunch with Meghan McCain, who is none other than the daughter of Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain. And yes, Heidi is boring as usual with her straight blonde locks that never change. Meghan of course does not have the most inspiring hairstyle, but when your dad is running for President of the United States, fading into the background is much more requisite than standing out amongst the crowd. Heidi dressed as conservative as even she could I suppose, and styled her hair in the same boring style with the flat iron and the side part. One would think that if you are somewhat of a starlet and are going to be seen with the daughter of a Presidential candidate you might make more of an effort. However, maybe Heidi doesn t even understand the whole Presidential thing who knows! Shake it up Heidi! Her hairstyle is getting as about as boring as her storyline.
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