Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker) [LWN.net]

Lifehacker takes a look at Hulu's new Linux version. "Hulu has taken their designed-for-widescreen, remote-friendly Desktop viewer and released it for Linux-powered systems, giving anyone with an open-source media center or Linux laptop an easier way to watch streaming video clips and movies on their much bigger screen."

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Hulu Desktop

Posted Oct 9, 2009 18:43 UTC (Fri) by 0b11101 (guest, #57638) [Link] (1 responses)

Hulu, a company entirely owned by Big Media corporations and which survives on delivering marketing and commercial advertising, wants you to install an application that requires root user privileges.

What could go wrong?

Hulu Desktop

Posted Oct 9, 2009 20:10 UTC (Fri) by briangmaddox (guest, #39279) [Link]

ls -l /usr/bin/huludesktop
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1379520 2009-10-07 22:54 /usr/bin/huludesktop

Runs as an ordinary user here. Unless you're talking installation, which
most distros require root to do unless you install directly to your home
dir.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 20:12 UTC (Fri) by Miladinoski (guest, #52970) [Link] (2 responses)

Why doesn't Hulu just go with Boxee, fully open-source and running on all major platforms already?

Why waste time on something that's already there, it works, and you still get viewers?

I'm kinda stumped...

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 22:26 UTC (Fri) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link] (1 responses)

From a quick look, it appears that Boxee (which is partly closed source) is really intended for a TV setup, and not a desktop... which based on my experience using /other/ software with a similar design on a desktop, I'd be surprised if it provides a very nice experience at all for keyboard+mouse users.

Also, based on the website, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the Hulu application was merely a container for a flash player, running the same flash code as the other versions, making it already mostly cross-platform.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 10, 2009 0:09 UTC (Sat) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

> Also, based on the website, I wouldn't be surprised if
> the majority of the Hulu application was merely a container
> for a flash player, running the same flash code as the
> other versions, making it already mostly cross-platform.

Your right. I just tried it out because I like to watch Hulu, but Flash
runs like shit on my Mini-9. I figured that since I have zero problems
watching video using mplayer and whatnot then that it would work fine.

But, no. It runs WORSE then the web-client. How they could of achieved that
is amazing.

And it, does indeed, look for the adobe flash plugin at startup.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 9, 2009 23:18 UTC (Fri) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

Don't kid yourself, Hulu doesn't want you watching their streams on a TV or similar class screen. Hulu's customers--large media corporations--who license their content in exchange for ad revenue, would much rather force you to watch the same content over broadcast media like cable/satellite TV or OTA broadcast. In that domain there are FAR more ads at much higher rates compared to Hulu. To that end, Hulu has made efforts to specifically prevent their flash video from operating on devices such as the PS3. I highly doubt they will ever make it easy to use the Hulu service as a poor man's IPTV, so to speak.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 10, 2009 0:31 UTC (Sat) by ebiederm (subscriber, #35028) [Link] (3 responses)

Open source??? This requires Adobe Flash Player 9.0.124.

Another free but closed app on linux is great. It would be
nice if the news authors could understand the difference.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 11, 2009 8:02 UTC (Sun) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (2 responses)

I wonder if Gnash or SWFdec could be made to impersonate the Adobe Flash player, so they could work with Hulu.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 11, 2009 8:56 UTC (Sun) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

They would have to defeat the Flash DRM.

This is very easy to do, of course. The encryption they use is a stripped-
down and made worthless version of SSL that is vulnerable to MiM attacks and
such. Plus the "signature" is created by taking a hash of the file size... It
is all documented online.

So breaking the DRM is easy, but it would automatically be hit with a DMCA
violation for breaking digital copyright protection schemes, or whatever is
the equivalent in Canada or the EU or whatever. (DMCA is really just a
legislation passed to enforce a international treaty if you look at it
closely)

Thankyou, USA Government and friends for keeping the world safe for piracy,
but illegal for making compatible software.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 12, 2009 7:16 UTC (Mon) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]

> So breaking the DRM is easy, but it would automatically be hit with a DMCA
> violation for breaking digital copyright protection schemes, or whatever is
> the equivalent in Canada or the EU or whatever. (DMCA is really just a
> legislation passed to enforce a international treaty if you look at it
> closely)

Doesn't this fall under the reverse engineering clause of the DMCA? There is some confusing language in there about "achiev[ing] interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs."

If not, support could still be added to Gnash / SWFDec in loadable module form. Not everyone lives in the US and Canada.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 10, 2009 4:51 UTC (Sat) by DDevine (guest, #60717) [Link]

Sucks that Hulu is only available in the USA. I am yet to try the performance of a proxy server though.

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux (Lifehacker)

Posted Oct 12, 2009 18:04 UTC (Mon) by pksings (guest, #93) [Link]

Doesn't matter, the app immediately implodes on a current Ubuntu Jaunty system with legit flash install, segfault.

It also required manual editing of the config file to even find the flash binary.

Not very useful or impressive.