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Hulu Coming To Australia?
Posted by Nick Broughall at 12:51 PM on July 31, 2008
Just a little over a week since the ABC launched their iView service for video on demand, executives from Hulu, the NBC/News Corp video streaming service from the US, have flown into Australia to meet with all the Australian networks to try and launch Hulu down under.
According to the SMH, all three free-to-air networks have met with Hulu, and seem to be fairly optimistic about the proposition, although whether or not we see an Australian version could come down to what kind of business deals are offered to the local networks.
But most interesting is the fact that network executives are also considering using the ABC's iView to do the same thing - act as a central content hub for programming from all the Australian networks.
According to the SMH, all three free-to-air networks have met with Hulu, and seem to be fairly optimistic about the proposition, although whether or not we see an Australian version could come down to what kind of business deals are offered to the local networks.
But most interesting is the fact that network executives are also considering using the ABC's iView to do the same thing - act as a central content hub for programming from all the Australian networks.
This week's over-the-top I Survived... challenges didn't have as much gadgety goodness as usual, but were strangely satisfying nonetheless. First, Velcro-clad contestants were dangled in front of of a teammate, who would try to pass them Velcro balls to catch. The objective was for the dangler, manipulated by two other contestants, to collect as many balls as possible without getting hit too many times by their opponent, stationed behind a cool pneumatic ball cannon.
The new episode still follows most of the tired reality show conventions and spends too much time on the stunningly boring contestants, but the brief game show events still impress. This week's challenge: become a human claw game, picking up prizes as teammates control your x, y and z axis movement. This challenge aired much to the chagrin of 
ABC is making some notable upgrades to their video streaming website. The service will now offer full-screen viewing, closed captioning and the option to embed videos a la YouTube—all on top of a more robust search engine. Apparently after being the first network video player online, it's leading over the market with 8.9 million unique views monthly. Let's hope upgrades like this keep online network competition fierce, and force these powerful companies to keep wooing us with more features and better functionality. 
I've been playing with the Beta of the new 
ABC has just added an HD channel to their online streaming player, allowing you to watch episodes of shows like Lost, Desperate Housewives, and The Bronx is Burning in hot, hot HD quality. It's still in beta, and it'll obviously require a pretty decent connection to run properly, but it's pretty awesome that you can now see HD episodes of modern classics like According to Jim whenever you want. So go ahead, try it out and let us know how it works. Don't pretend like you have work to do or anything; we know better. [
