The Hulu hullaballoo

In my last post, I wrote about turning an old Xbox into a media center for my living room. And trust me, it is sweet!

But one of the main reasons for the project was to be able to watch Hulu on my television without having to lug a laptop into the living room and plug in a couple of cables.

Hulu, for those select few who haven't seen their creepy commercials with Alec Baldwin, is the hottest streaming video site on the Internet. It combines legal video content from multiple sources, ranging from current TV programming such as "24" and "Life" to archive episodes of series such as "Airwolf" and "Charlie's Angels."

But apparently Hulu's content providers had no intention of Hulu's users ever watching streaming video in their living rooms. TV? That is the province of the networks and cable.

So, bending to the threat of losing valuable content, Hulu began encrypting their video feeds, rendering their streams unviewable to those using XBMC, Boxee, MythTV and other media center devices.

It took XBMC's volunteer developers two days to sidestep Hulu's encryption scheme, but then Hulu changed it again. Volunteers hacked it once again, but the new hack won't work on XBMC for the Xbox (those on Linux, Mac and Windows can still get Hulu hotness).

I personally don't understand the business sense of excluding thousands of viewers based simply on the device they use, but Hulu's content providers must have some logical explanation for their disdain. How can they allow me to embed their video here, yet keep it off my TV?

So, I abandoned Hulu on the Xbox and replaced it with a Fancast plugin. Fancast also serves "The Adventures of Brisco County Junior" and the "A-Team," so I'm set ... at least for now.