An easy way to improve your NetFlix experience

[Orrex]

Try Hulu Plus. Absolutely the worst service I've encountered in 20+ years online. Unremarkable selection of programs, hideously inadequate search engine, and preposterously bad user interface. Also apparently not available for Android, according to the Hulu website, which simply blows my mind.

I got suckered into a free one-month trial, but I wouldn't use the service if they paid me $20 a month to do so.


How can any serious company offer such a shitty service in the current tech environment?

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Try it, my kid says to me...it's good, he says.

So I tried Hulu.
Could not get past the interface....maddening, as you say.

There are other ways to get the same shows, much faster and easier.

[CBGLuthier]

3. I love huluplus.

Most of the classic Dr.Who. The Daily Show and Colbert Report. 800 Criterion movies. Modern Family if i miss an episode.
It is available on my android device not sure what android you are talking about..

[Orrex]

4. Perhaps I have an older version

Have you tried using Hulu on your tv? How do you get past the shitty interface? Honestly, it's embarrassingly bad, like something that a freshman year Computer Science class would come up with on day one, having never previously seen a computer or smartphone or television.

Here's an example:

I searched for National Geographic Explorer, using the laggy onscreen alpha-numeric selector, taking approximately 90 seconds to enter.

It retured about 400 results, none of which was for National Geographic Explorer, so I selected the option to return to my original search. Surprise! The search field is blanked out, so I have to do it again from scratch!

Maybe it's a great service, but if so then they do a fantastic job of concealing this fact.

[CBGLuthier]

7. Yes, the search engine is a bit laggy because of the quantity of shows but nothinglike you describe

I use it on a PS3 mainly and also the Roku. I do kind of like the interface myself but again, it runs smoothly for me. I don;t search through the engine so much as the genre and channel links which run smoother.

I will admit the hulu interface was kind of laggy on the original Roku I had but it was the first model.

I think with the android interface you can search on the interface and then watch on the PS3 but not sure.

The best interface, on the PS3 that I have seen is HBOGo's. It even lets you find details like cast and crew of the movies. The bad thing though is everything is the exact same aspect ratio but I don't watch that many movies there.

[Orrex]

8. You'd think that they would build the site with that in mind, though.

I can't be the only person using a Wii, after all. If they can't offer a search feature that's at least on par with NetFlix (which is also pretty weak), then they almost shouldn't bother. At the very least you should be able to search by cast, director, genre, title and year.

[CBGLuthier]

11. You might consider a Roku

Very affordable, thousands of niche channels and more than a few mainstream,

You can get PBS and Youtube in addition to the biggies like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu etc. Plus they have Warner Classics. It also does full 1080 HD.

Most of the services in app search engines suck. Amazon is one of the worst even on their web page.

[Orrex]

12. We have one on our tv upstairs.

The Wii is in the living room. Um, for the kids of course...

[CBGLuthier]

13. we got the PS3 because it is an excellent Blu ray player and DVD upconverter.

The fact that a few thousand zombies have been killed and many mindless hours of Zen Pinball played since its installation is incidental.

[blogslut]

5. I love Hulu but Hulu Plus isn't worth the expense for me personally.

It's not backwards-compatible for my 1st Gen iPad. When I try to use it on my Wii-TV setup, it stalls during commercials, forcing me to pause/play, pause/play, pause/play which makes watching shows a pain.

I'll stick with the free version of Hulu and continue to pay for Netflix. Netflix works great on my old iPad and it doesn't act weird on my Wii-TV.

[malthaussen]

6. I use Hulu to watch Stewart and Colbert.

Occasionally something else. I wouldn't pay for it, but the free service is better than Stewart and Colbert's own sites. But I watch on my desktop, I don't own a mobile device.

-- Mal

[vanlassie]

9. I am still furious that Comcast made my TiVo

not work. TiVo was +1000 time better than On Demand.

[antiquie]

10. Hulu free was asking for credentials on HuffPo.

I have sent several emails to both companies. HuffPo sends me bots. Hulu free tells me I do not have a HuluPlus account (which I explained in emails, of course). The reason I would log into Hulu Free was to keep track of tv shows.

Never again. Free Hulu is too expensive.

[Dr. Strange]

14. I wouldn't try it if they paid you $20 a month either.

You'd just waste the money on bubblegum, comics, and zombie poetry.

[sendero]

15. I partly agree..

.... the content on Hulu for TV is hit and miss. A lot of times it looks like they have a show and you drill down and find that they have one season out of 5. They do have a lot of old stuff, and a lot of Briitish TV though. I'm about to go watch the last episode of Misfits

Their UI is the pits although it recently got a bit better on the Roku app. Seriously though, whoever designed the way the UI works, from navigation to layout to what info is shown where, should really seek an alternative career. It is pathetic and noticeably very inferior to Netflix, Amazon and every other service I have used.

[Sherman A1]

16. Tried Hulu Plus last year

and in my opinion it would have to improve by several magnitudes to reach the level of miserable.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Hulu Plus has the entire Criterion Collection of classic films and lots of foreign TV

especially some of the best British and Canadian shows.