Most moviegoers don’t notice what studio is behind any particular movie. We see the studio names flash on the screen in the opening credits and then they’re gone. Even to avid film lovers, it’s the movie that matters most. Sometimes the director, often the actors. But the studio for most people just isn’t a piece of information worth retaining, if even worth noticing in the first place.

Over the last couple of decades, though, the name of one studio just refused to lurk beneath the surface. It kept hitting us film buffs again and again, flashing briefly on the screen before movie after movie. And not just on any movies, but those kinds of movies that you talk about with friends, and that stay with you for days afterwards. It just kept repeating itself with a sort of resonant frequency, powered by a host of amazingly talented new creative voices, the raw energy of doing things that were truly new, and a certain taste that defied definition or categorization. Movies that weren’t just entertaining, but that seemed to truly matter.

That studio is Miramax. To anyone who really loves movies, the name Miramax matters.

If they didn’t get you in the early days with Cinema Paradiso or My Left Foot, then they got you later with Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Clerks and Sling Blade … or The English Patient, Trainspotting, Good Will Hunting, and Amelie. Movies that mattered just kept coming with the Miramax name attached. And it wasn’t just “serious” films that Miramax did well. They even managed to make genre films like Scary Movie and Scream break the mold for such films in a way that we just had to notice.

At Hulu, we spend a lot of time thinking about innovation and how to foster it. Apart from how much I love these movies themselves, that is another reason I have so much respect for Miramax. They innovated, and they were absolutely relentless about it for more than 30 years. So, I couldn’t be more excited to announce today that Miramax films and more are coming to Hulu and the Hulu Plus subscription service. On Hulu Plus, 27 titles are available today, with hundreds more to be added steadily over the next month or so. For those of you who are Hulu Plus subscribers, enjoy playing Pulp Fiction and many other great Miramax films in HD today on your Internet-connected TV, phone, or iPad. If you’re not a Hulu Plus subscriber, it’s a great time to try the service free for a week. And, in addition to all these great movies being added to Hulu Plus, starting in mid-June, we’ll be showcasing a selection of Miramax titles each month for free on the ad-supported Hulu service. This is the first time Miramax has made films available to movie fans on an ad-supported, on-demand streaming basis.

There are some films that give you a jolt the first time you see them. The really great ones hit you hard each time you watch. With moments like Uma Thurman and John Travolta’s Batusi dance scene, Samuel L. Jackson’s “Royale with Cheese” French lesson, and Christopher Walken’s warped story about a watch, Pulp Fiction is one of those movies. Each time I see that film, I discover something new, another level of detail from the mind of Quentin Tarantino. Now that it’s available on Hulu Plus, I plan to watch it yet again and see what comes to the surface this time. I hope you do the same: It plays as well today as it did the day it was released. A warm welcome to Vincent and Jules. Great to see you again.

Andy Forssell
SVP, Content and Distribution

When I called Eugene Wei in June 2007 to ask him to join me as a summer intern on this adventure once referred to as “NewCo,” I knew he would be a great builder for our team. That internship turned into a nearly four-year career and, along the way, Eugene’s influence has permeated the nooks and crannies of Hulu, from the look and feel of the site to the customer-obsessed ethos that is as natural as oxygen here at Hulu.

Eugene is a builder, and similar to other builders, he has always had an overabundance of interests and not enough time to pursue all of them. Not surprisingly, Eugene’s next move is to build a company of his own. While it is hard for all of us to see a friend and colleague leave, we take pride in the accomplishments a builder like Eugene has achieved. In his time with Hulu, Eugene has been a central force in growing the product and developer team from five builders to 145 across Santa Monica, Seattle, and Beijing. And that hard work is enabling us to welcome more than 150 new builders across the company this year alone.

On behalf of the entire Hulu team, thank you, Eugene, for the amazing foundation you helped to build here at Hulu. Your work and your teams will delight so many people in the years to come.

Jason

Jason Kilar
CEO, Hulu
jason@hulu.com

Dear Hulu Community,

As a TV and movie buff, I’m excited to announce that as of today, Xbox is bringing you a brand new way to enjoy Hulu Plus content from the comfort of your living room. What makes it even better? No need to fish through your couch cushions to find the remote when you want to fast forward to your favorite action sequence or pause that TV show to grab a cold soda. With Kinect for Xbox 360, you can simply say “Xbox, pause” or use gestures to rewind, pause and fast forward your way through your favorite shows.

Joining an expanding catalogue of tens of thousands of TV shows, movies and sports, plus millions of songs, the addition of Hulu Plus gives U.S.-based Xbox LIVE Gold members and Hulu Plus subscribers the chance to instantly stream episodes of top shows and use their voice as the remote control. With a growing community of 30 million active members around the world and the only place to enjoy control-free entertainment, we can’t wait for you to experience Hulu Plus on Xbox LIVE.

It’s partners like Hulu that allow us to deliver amazing content, while also enhancing your living room entertainment experience through the power of Kinect. As Rob mentioned, you can even try Hulu Plus on Xbox LIVE at no cost between April 29 and May 6 thanks to our advertising partner, Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, who is sponsoring free access to all Xbox LIVE members (Free or Gold). It’s time to run that TV marathon party!

We’re looking forward to innovating further and the launch of Hulu Plus on Xbox LIVE marks just the beginning of what’s still to come. What will you be watching on Hulu Plus on Xbox LIVE this weekend?

Enjoy!
Pete Thompson
General Manager, Xbox LIVE

I have one of the best jobs on earth. I get to work with insanely smart developers, both here at Hulu and at our device partners, to deliver the Hulu Plus™ subscription service on internet-connected devices. Today is one of those days that makes me smile.

With much excitement, I’m happy to share that Hulu Plus has launched on the Xbox 360 via Xbox LIVE. And thanks to a sponsorship with Jack Link’s, we’re able to offer ALL Xbox LIVE members (free and Gold) one free week of Hulu Plus, no Gold membership or credit card required. Just log in on your Xbox 360 and select “Hulu Plus” on the main menu. (Thanks, Jack Link’s!) The offer is available for a limited time.

Hulu Plus offers hit TV shows and classic movies anytime in HD. Instantly stream any current season episode of top shows like Modern Family, 30 Rock, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and many others. And catch up on full back seasons on series including Lost, Chapelle’s Show and Battlestar Galactica, or explore hundreds of acclaimed movies from The Criterion Collection. All for $7.99 a month with limited advertising.

Available today, Xbox LIVE Gold Members gain unlimited access to our deep library of movies and TV shows any time. And we’ve built the Hulu Plus experience on the Xbox 360 to take advantage of the controller-free navigation via Kinect. Thanks to the magic of Kinect, you become the controller and can play, pause, fast forward and rewind with just the sound of your voice or the wave of your hand. Kinect support for Hulu Plus will also feature a recommendation channel that doesn’t require a controller and suggests movies or TV shows that you may enjoy. It’s an experience like no other.

Watch a guided tour on how to set up Hulu Plus on your Xbox 360 here. To sign up for your Hulu Plus subscription and learn more about its benefits, visit http://www.hulu.com/plus/unlock.

If you are an existing Hulu Plus subscriber with an Xbox LIVE Gold membership, you can easily activate your account on your Xbox 360 by simply logging in.

Our team is constantly working to expand Hulu Plus to even more devices. We hope you enjoy watching Hulu Plus on the Xbox 360 as much as we enjoyed building it. Enjoy!

Rob Wong (rob.wong@hulu.com)
Director, Product Management

Today we released version 2.3 of our Hulu Plus iOS application in the Apple App Store.

Some noticeable changes in Version 2.3:

• - Search results are now organized into tabs, which are easier to review
• - There is a dedicated button on the Movies menu for our popular and growing Criterion movie collection

Additionally, we made a number of changes under the hood to improve performance and video playback for both the iPhone and the iPad. This included fixing an issue with the resume functionality, which was affecting a small number of users.

If you’re an existing Hulu Plus subscriber with an iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad, please download or update the app and try it out. Thanks for your continued support.

Lonn Lee
Hulu Mobile Applications Product Management

On Tuesday we released the latest version of Hulu Plus for the PlayStation®3. The update continues to make improvements to the playback experience, addressing issues such as skipping or stalls. Valuable user feedback was critical in being able to isolate and resolve the issues.

The update (v1.03) will install the next time you launch the Hulu Plus app on PS3. We hope this helps you enjoy your favorites that much more. Let us know what you think!

Daniel Bear
Senior Development Lead, Hulu

Update 8/31:

To those who are still experiencing playback issues, I’m very sorry about the frustration you’ve been having with the Hulu Plus app on your PS3. Our developers are aware of these issues and are hard at work on an update that should address them as soon as possible. These issues are complex, so I can’t give a timetable on when we’ll see an update released.

Try the steps listed on this article. If these don’t help, please contact the Hulu Support team, there may be something we can do for you. Once again, I’m sorry about the frustration and we appreciate you bearing with us.

Thanks,
James Goux
Hulu Support Lead

This morning, we released the latest version of Hulu Plus for the PlayStation®3. The update improves the quality of the playback experience, specifically addressing issues such as skips, jumps, and stalls that may occur on certain network connections.

You’ll be presented with the update (v1.01) the next time you launch the Hulu Plus app on PS3. Improvements in this version include:

– Improvements and fixes for playback issues such as skipping, jumping, and stalling.
– Improved playback reporting to help our team improve the playback experience.
– UI tweaks to compensate for device overscan.
– Added ability for new users to sign up for a Hulu Plus subscription within the application.
– Additional improvements and bug fixes.

Let us know what you think!

Daniel Bear
Senior Development Lead, Hulu

There are times in business when you get to do things that that just seem right. I’m lucky that I have a job where this is fairly common. And today is definitely one of those times.

Hulu’s mission is to help our users find and enjoy the world’s premium content when, how, and where they want. And we think you would be hard pressed to find content more premium than the TEDTalks from the prestigious TED conferences. Incredible people. Amazing ideas. With the launch of our partnership with TED today, it’s our honor to offer millions of Hulu users 50 of the most popular TEDTalks from the last few years. More are coming soon, including select new talks from the 2011 TED Conference that’s just about to begin.

For those of you who are not familiar with TED, think of TEDTalks as a smart and concise way to explore new ideas and gain exposure to concepts and innovations you may not have ever seen before, all in 18 minutes or less. All TEDTalks share a common thread: ideas worth spreading as told by the most inspiring and passionate doers and thinkers around. Through Hulu and Hulu Plus, we hope to extend the reach and impact of TED, because the more people who hear and understand an idea, the more powerful that idea becomes. To introduce these talks, which focus on technology, entertainment, and design, I’ve included a few of my favorites at the end of this post.

All TED content on Hulu will be available on Hulu.com and on the Hulu Plus subscription service. Through Hulu Plus, it is now possible for TED fans to watch TEDTalks on demand, in HD when available, in the living room and on mobile devices. It’s a whole new way to experience TED. We hope Hulu Plus users gather family and friends in the living room to watch the talks together through their Internet-connected TV, gaming console, Blu-ray player, or set-top box, and then have a conversation inspired by what they just saw.

Many thanks to our friends at TED for doing what they do so well, and for letting us be a part of getting this great content seen in new ways.

Andy Forssell (andy@hulu.com)
SVP Content & Distribution

Sir Ken Robinson talks about the importance of creativity and how schools can kill it.

Aimee Mullins talks about her 12 pairs of legs, completely turning inside out the idea of disability.

Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen. An absolutely amazing and entertaining look at what incredible stories data can tell.

Hopefully you’ve benefited from Hulu’s recommendations in the past, whether we’ve helped you get reacquainted with an old favorite TV show or introduced you to a new movie on Hulu. For logged-in Hulu users, the recommendations engine takes into account all kinds of factors as it suggests shows that you might enjoy — including videos you’ve watched, commented on, or told us you’ve enjoyed in the past.

Now we’ve made it even easier for you to find great shows and movies with our new recommendations hub. You can easily access your recommendations right off of the home page navigation bar. Think of it as a personal shopper that will point you to great entertainment, tailored to your specific tastes.

Enjoy! And as always, let us know what you think on our discussion board.

Peter Sargent
Product Manager

My earliest movie exposure was heavily influenced by what my father could find at the local video store. He’d stop there on the way home from work and pick out one of new releases from the display of empty video boxes that lined the outer walls of the store. And so my early love of movies grew largely from a diet of American Hollywood blockbusters because that’s what dominated the most coveted merchandising space at our local video stores.

After college, I moved to Seattle, and some movie buffs I met there introduced me to a video store called Scarecrow Video. This was unlike any video store I’d ever encountered. It was enormous, carrying seemingly every movie ever put on video in any format, from VHS to laserdisc to DVD, including PAL videotapes and foreign region DVDs that required renting special machines to play. These were movies from all over the world, in all languages, sorted not just by new versus old but by country, director, and genre. It was at Scarecrow that I rented my first Criterion laser disc. Most of them were so rare that the store required a credit card deposit of several hundred dollars just to walk out of the store with the movie.

But it was worth it. The Criterion Collection is likely the preeminent distribution brand in the minds of movie buffs. They’ve earned that title in two key ways. One is by curating and licensing rights to a library of truly great, enduring movies. Secondly, when they bring those movies to the world, they do so with an attention to detail and quality that can only come from the purest love and respect for movies as an art form.

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve added the Criterion Collection exclusively to our Hulu Plus service today. Criterion has digital streaming rights to over 800 of the films in their library, from a who’s who roster of directors: Antonioni, Bergman, Bresson, Bunuel, Chabrol, Chaplin, Clouzot, Cocteau, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Fassbinder, Fellini, Godard, Kaurismaki, Kieslowski, Kurosawa, Lang, Malle, Ozu, Renoir, Tati, Truffaut, Varda, and Welles, to name two handfuls. We’re launching with over 150 Criterion movies today, and we’ll be adding more titles each month. Among the launch list today are so many acknowledged classics: The 400 Blows, L’Avventura, The Battle of Algiers, Breathless, La Jetée, Jules and Jim, M, Pickpocket, Playtime, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, La Strada, and The Wages of Fear.

But just as exciting are the titles still to come. These include not just more well-known classics but also movies that have been difficult or impossible to find on video in any format. Le Silence de la Mer, by one of my favorite directors, Jean-Pierre Melville. The extended filmography of Kenji Mizoguchi. Early shorts by Chaplin. L’Assassin Habite au 21, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s first feature. This doesn’t even include the supplemental content Criterion is famous for and which we’ll bring to the Criterion experience on Hulu Plus over time: commentaries, documentaries, interviews, original trailers, essays, and more. Many of these will be digitized for the first time. We’re honored to partner with Criterion to make all this cinematic treasure available to movie lovers, critics, and historians alike.

Movies, unlike most of our TV programs, aren’t shot with ad breaks in mind, and it has always been tricky to find opportune moments to inject ad breaks in movies on Hulu.com so that we can compensate content owners while maintaining the optimum user experience. For Criterion, thanks to our advertising partners, Hulu Plus subscribers will be able to watch the Criterion Collection free of interruption. (Any ads will play up front.) For those who don’t have a Hulu Plus subscription, each month we’ll still rotate a few Criterion titles through Hulu.com with our normal periodic ad breaks.

The first set of Criterion movies are already available across all devices supported by the Hulu Plus service. On the web, you’ll find Criterion on Hulu at www.hulu.com/criterion. Please dive in and let us know what you think!

Eugene Wei
SVP of Audience

It’s not often that you get to say you are going to meet millions of new people on a single day while making a wish come true for many of your oldest friends, but that is exactly what is happening to the Criterion Collection today, as we go live with a major new offering on Hulu.

When I first started working at the Criterion Collection about seventeen years ago, I remember coming across a file box full of typed and handwritten letters that viewers had sent to Jon Mulvaney, our longtime customer liaison. At that time, the company was sometimes referred to as the “Rolls-Royce of laser discs” — an honor, to be sure, but one that was meaningful to a vanishingly small sliver of the American public. Many of our editions sold hundreds, not even thousands, of copies, at prices as high as $125 for a single film, but we had a very dedicated audience of movie lovers who had come to value Criterion for our commitment to quality, and for the array of special features we had pioneered starting in 1984, when we published the first ever commentary tracks and special features to appear alongside motion pictures.

It is tempting to say that a lot has changed since then, but the truth is, even more has remained constant. We don’t make laser discs anymore, but we are still dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and using the latest technology to present them in editions that will deepen viewers’ appreciation and understanding of the art of cinema. Customers still write to Jon Mulvaney all the time, but now instead of pens and typewriters, they send him e-mail or post to our Facebook page or Twitter.

When I think back to all the letters I read that day, I realize that even the subjects of those letters haven’t changed much at all. Most were and are passionate pleas for us to release a favorite film or seek out a particular director’s work, but then, as now, one of the most common requests was for some kind of subscription program that would give customers access to everything we put out.

Starting today, there are more than 150 of our most important films online on the Hulu Plus subscription service. Over the coming months, that number will swell to more than 800 films. For the true cinephile, this should be a dream come true. On Hulu Plus, you’ll find everything in our library, from Academy Award winners to many of the most famous films by art-house superstars like Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, and Federico Fellini to films so rare that they have never been seen in the U.S. in any medium. Some of these lost gems have been so hard to see that even most of the Criterion staff will see them for the first time only when they go live on Hulu Plus! Each month, we’ll be highlighting a mix of programs, centered on themes, directors, actors, and other creative artists, as well as celebrity picks, and mixing them with deep cuts from the catalog that will be unknown to all but the most prominent cinephiles in the world.

Criterion has always been a company driven by its mission, not by any particular medium, and while we still see our core business as producing the world’s best DVD and Blu-ray versions of the world’s best films, this new venture with Hulu represents a huge expansion of our reach. Not only will Hulu users have access to the largest digital archive of Criterion movies for the first time, Hulu Plus subscribers will now be able to stream our films (and yes, before long, many of our supplements too!) on a wide array of devices, including iPhones, iPads, PlayStations, and Internet-connected television sets.

And finally, why Hulu? In short, because they get it. As their regular viewers know, the Hulu user experience is exactly what it should be: simple, elegant, and focused on the content. Hulu has built their brand on letting the shows and movies take center stage. Nobody does it better, and we’re honored that they see Criterion as a good match for their audience. We’re going to do all we can to make the experience of Criterion on Hulu Plus an exciting adventure for all of us, so please check it out and let us know what you think.

Peter Becker
CEO, Criterion

At Hulu, we pay a lot of attention to what users say about us, and how Hulu fits into your lives. For many of you, we know that Hulu has become an important way to catch up on current TV — the place to go when you missed last night’s episode of Glee, 30 Rock, or Modern Family. And when we read the discussions boards on Hulu.com and tweets from our users, it’s clear to us that enjoying Hulu is about more than any one show. It’s also about how your favorite shows relate to the rest of what is going on in pop culture.

Part of the fun is connecting the dots … TV, movies, web video, Twitter … what’s hot, what’s trending, and what‘s over. Lately, our users have been asking us for a quick and fun way to stay current on the latest in pop culture. We looked far and wide for a show that struck the right balance between being entertaining and being informative, but we just couldn’t find something that hit the mark.

So today, we are previewing The Morning After, a new initiative from Hulu Labs designed to help our users stay current on the water cooler chatter of the day. Hosted by Brian Kimmet and Ginger Gonzaga, and available daily Monday through Friday on Hulu.com and Hulu Plus, The Morning After is a smart, daily shot of pop culture to help Hulu users stay up to date — all in less than five minutes.

In developing The Morning After, we were inspired by shows like The Big Show with Olbermann and Patrick, which blended the love of sports with brainy cultural references that easily move from emotional to funny in one segment. The Morning After aspires to be that kind of show, but for all things pop culture.

To build The Morning After, we selected Jace Hall and the very talented team at HDFilms, a production company devoted to creating extremely high quality content spanning multiple media. When we saw the caliber of work produced by HDFilms, we knew they were right the production team for this project.

We consider this our “preview” period for The Morning After. It’s a chance for us to develop and evolve the show with your input. So please let us know what you think. We’re at TMA@hulu.com on email or @TMAonHulu on Twitter, and we’re looking forward to your feedback.

Andy Forssell (andy@hulu.com)
Senior Vice President, Content & Distribution

Since we launched Hulu Plus, it’s been our goal to continue to add more platforms and devices to the subscription service to offer you as many ways as possible to stream the shows you want, whenever you want. We’re excited to share the following news.

During Samsung’s keynote at CES today, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar announced for the first time that Hulu is working to bring the Hulu Plus subscription service to select Android™ phones (running Android OS 2.2), and gave the audience a sneak peek at the Hulu Plus Android app during the presentation. Hulu Plus will be available on select Android mobile phones in coming months; we’ll announce further details as soon as we have an official launch date and complete list of Hulu Plus-enabled Android phones. We hope you’re as excited as we are!

For many of our users, the preferred way to enjoy Hulu Plus is by lounging on the living room couch, watching on a sleek new HDTV. (Thanks, Santa!) Today, Hulu is giving you one more way to watch current episodes of Modern Family, Glee, The Office, and more from the comfort of your living room: Hulu Plus is now available on Vizio Internet-connected HDTVs, and is coming soon to Vizio Blu-ray players. As with any new Hulu Plus device, the team has worked extremely hard to develop an optimized experience for these platforms.

Finally, we also announced an agreement to bring Hulu Plus to Haier internet-connected HDTVs and Blu-ray players later this year.

Happy watching!
Rob Wong (rob.wong@hulu.com)
Director, Product

Just in time for the holidays, we’ve unwrapped some new goodies to share with our users on Hulu.com: playlists and a new way to browse the site.

We’re always looking for new ways to make watching TV on Hulu more fun, and playlists now put our users in control: now you can create and share your own playlists with your friends and the rest of the Hulu community. Think you’re an expert on all things Saturday Night Live? Create a definitive playlist. Want to save an assortment of videos to watch back-to-back later? Create a playlist. Simply click on the “+” symbol near a video on Hulu and select the “Add to playlist” option. Create a new playlist or add the video to an existing list; later, you can enter descriptions for the video from the new “Playlists” tab in your Profile.

From your profile view, you can browse all of your playlists, write descriptions, and also set your privacy preferences. (Videos that are set to “public” can be browsed from our new Playlists hub and viewed by the entire Hulu community.) I’ve already created one about two of my favorite guys on TV, Troy and Abed from Community, but you can also explore Hulu’s Editors’ picks from the main Playlists hub. Over time, we’ll be highlighting our favorite users playlists on this page; if you’d like to submit yours for consideration, feel free to send a link to me at rebecca.harper@hulu.com.

To navigate to Playlists from our home page, you’ll want to check out our new navigation bar at the top of the page. We’ve streamlined the options here, consolidating links to TV, Movies, Trailers, and Playlists in a single “Browse” drop-down that also includes our Coming Soon page — a great way to preview which videos are coming to Hulu in the next week — and Genres (formerly known as channels), where you can browse by category.

Back in the navigation bar, the “Most Popular” and “Recently Added” links will help you reach your destination more quickly, whether you’re looking for the most recent episode of your favorite show or today’s most popular movie trailer. This is just the latest in a series of projects that will allow you to not only find your favorite content quickly and easily, but also discover new content that maybe you didn’t realize we had at Hulu.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Hulu!
Rebecca Harper (rebecca.harper@hulu.com)
Editor

Since we released the Hulu Plus^™ subscription service as a preview in July, the Hulu team has been hard at work extending the device footprint, refining existing applications, and adding to the content lineup, all while listening to feedback from our users, content partners, and advertisers.

I am happy to announce that today we are launching the Hulu Plus subscription service out of preview. With this launch, we are proud to offer our users the only subscription service with the full current season of hit TV shows like Glee, Modern Family, The Office, House, 30 Rock, Grey’s Anatomy, and more, with minimal ad-load, across computers, TVs, mobile phones, and tablets.

We’ve always been committed to providing our users the best value possible in all of our offerings, and we’re excited to announce several milestones in that goal for Hulu Plus.

First, the monthly price for Hulu Plus moving forward is just $7.99. Any current subscribers who joined during our preview period will receive a credit for the difference from the $9.99 preview price. This credit will automatically be applied to their next billing cycle.

Hulu Plus is now available on devices that have an installed base of over 50 million. Today, Hulu Plus launches on Roku. All PlayStation 3 owners with a PlayStation Network account, which is free, can download the Hulu Plus application. In the months to come, Hulu Plus will be coming to Internet-connected Vizio, LG Electronics, and Panasonic Blu-ray players and HDTVs; TiVo Premiere DVRs; the Xbox 360; and Western Digital’s WD TV Live Hub Media Center and WD TV Live Plus Network Media Player, with many more mobile phones, tablets, set-top boxes, and Internet-connected devices to be announced.

We haven’t forgotten about our existing device lineup and applications, either. Over the next week, updates to the Samsung, PlayStation 3, and Apple iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch Hulu Plus apps will be available, bringing a variety of bug fixes and feature and performance enhancements.

Now that the fall TV season is underway, Hulu Plus is the only subscription service to offer every episode of new shows from ABC, Fox, and NBC, including Raising Hope, No Ordinary Family, and The Event, in addition to established favorites like House, Glee, and Modern Family. We’ve also added back seasons of hit shows including Monk, Psych, and Battlestar Galactica, and by year-end, the lineup will include every episode from all 36 seasons of Saturday Night Live.

We realize that for many users, Hulu Plus represents a markedly new way to keep up with their favorite TV shows. To make it as easy and risk-free as possible for users to try out this service, we’re pleased to share the following special offers:

• One free week trials for all new subscribers. In addition, current subscribers who joined during the preview period will receive a credit for one week of Hulu Plus toward their next month’s subscription.
• Two free weeks of Hulu Plus for both current subscribers and friends they invite through our referral program. Subscribers can learn more by clicking on the “Referrals” tab on their Hulu profile page.
• 11 weeks ($20 worth) of free Hulu Plus with the purchase of a Sony BRAVIA connected TV or Blu-ray player through January 31, 2011. (See sony.com/huluplus.)
• One free month of Hulu Plus with the purchase of a Roku device through December 15, 2010. (See roku.com/hulu.)

We’re highly encouraged by the response we’ve received to the Hulu Plus service during the preview period. Though the service has only been in preview for part of this year, Hulu Plus is already accounting for a material percentage of Hulu’s overall business. But we’re even more excited about where we plan to take the service in the months and years to come. This is just one more step in the journey to reinvent TV. We hope you’ll join us.

Jason Kilar
CEO, Hulu
jason@hulu.com

Since we kicked off our preview of Hulu Plus, it’s been our mission to continually add more devices and content to the Hulu Plus service. Over the past few weeks, we’ve added several titles to the Hulu Plus service, including new fall shows like Raising Hope, No Ordinary Family, and The Event, and back seasons of hit shows including Monk, Psych, and Battlestar Galactica. Today, we’re also happy to announce the availability of Hulu Plus on Sony BRAVIA® 2010 TVs, with the service expanding to other BRAVIA devices in the near future.

As we scale our infrastructure throughout the preview period, we want to open the service to a larger subscriber base. To make it easier for people to try out Hulu Plus, you no longer need an invitation to subscribe. In the next week, all PS3 owners with a PlayStation Network account, which is free, will be able to download and subscribe to Hulu Plus. This will also coincide with an updated PS3 application that incorporates some of the feedback we’ve received to date.

As the Hulu Plus preview period continues, we’ll continue to work diligently to expand the service to more devices, add more content and incorporate feedback to improve the service. Happy watching!

Rob Wong (rob.wong@hulu.com)
Director, Product

Hulu Plus version 1.2 went live in the iTunes App Store yesterday. The app runs on all devices at or above iOS 3.2.

The list of tweaks and additions is far too long for this post, but here are some of the key improvements we’ve put into version 1.2:

• - More intuitive behavior around receiving notifications (e.g., calendar, SMS, or phone calls) while in the app
• - Improved resume functionality
• - Better cross-device synching
• - More search results

Beyond these, we’ve made many improvements to the Hulu Plus app’s stability and playback performance, especially when playing videos at high bit rates.

We’ve got a lot more updates across all our apps planned for the coming months. Stay tuned!

Zach Holt
Lead Software Developer, Hulu

P.S. If you’re looking for an exciting job at the intersection of media and technology, check out our jobs list.

Perhaps when you think of Seattle your taste buds prepare themselves for a freshly brewed espresso or a not-so-simple soy-decaf-single-shot-one-pump-vanilla-iced-latte. Or perhaps Seattle conjures images of the halls of Seattle Grace Hospital, where lives are saved and relationships flatline. Or maybe, if you’re like me, your thoughts rush to Cuban sandwiches at Paseo, the inspiring view at Gasworks Park, and the incredible engineering and startup communities that thrive in this rainy Emerald City.

As someone who called Seattle my home for nearly eight years, I’m truly excited to announce that Hulu will be opening a development center in Seattle by the end of the year.

While most people think of TV shows when they think of Hulu, at Hulu we pride ourselves in being a technology company first and foremost. Over the last year, we’ve scaled our service to handle over 30 million users and over 1 billion streams per month. We’ve architected a content distribution platform to store, transcode, and deliver petabytes of video on commodity hardware. We even managed to launch our own video ad server while building a subscription service that provides users with unfettered access to their favorite shows on PCs, TVs, gaming consoles, and mobile devices.

But despite all our progress to date, our toughest and most interesting technical challenges continue to lie ahead of us. The online video experience today is only a fraction of what we think it can and should be, and we’re looking for talented people who, like us, are inspired to invent the future.

We’ve always known that Hulu is defined by its people and its culture. We believe that the talented engineers of the Seattle area embody our philosophy, and we have firsthand knowledge to back that up: nearly 50 percent of our developers in Los Angeles were once Seattleites building enterprise database servers, operating systems and web frameworks.

Rest assured we will leave no coffee shop unchecked and no coffee bean unturned as we search for the brightest and best software developers out there. If you’re one of them and are interested in a new adventure, stop over at our job site or ping me at richard@hulu.com.

Richard Tom
VP, Platform Technology

One of the first phone calls I made over 3 years ago when Hulu was not yet Hulu was to Eric Feng. Eric and I got to know each other in Seattle when he was at Microsoft and I was at Amazon. In the weeks following my phone call to Eric in May of 2007, I traveled to Beijing, China, and that was when Eric officially jumped aboard as Hulu’s founding CTO. Eric and I also decided that afternoon to start a software development center in Beijing in support of what was to become Hulu. Below is a picture from that afternoon:

It has been an incredible 3 years, and Eric has done what only world-class builders can do. Specifically, he has embraced and nurtured a highly unique culture; he has built and grown an extremely talented team; he has enabled those builders to build great things; he has relentlessly pursued a better way each and every day. Hulu’s technologists are leading the charge in both Los Angeles and Beijing, creating and innovating the media service that we feel the world both needs and deserves.

Over the past year, a very unique opportunity has emerged for Eric, and he’s going to pursue it with my full support. I’ll let him share the news with you below via an email he sent to the Hulu team members a few hours ago. Eric will be departing Hulu in mid July, a little over a month from now.

I want to take this moment to say thank you to Eric for all that he has done for Hulu. In addition to being a world-class builder with an atypically high quality bar, he also happens to be a friend to all of us at Hulu. I am extremely proud of what he has done and how he has done it. Yes, I would prefer that Eric be at Hulu until he is old and gray. But often in professional life, that is not the way it goes. We’ve been planning for this day for some time now, and our deep and talented technology team is well prepared to ensure that we remain obsessed in our relentless pursuit of a better way. Rich Tom, who has been with Hulu since the beginning, will be leading our platform’s technology. Eugene Wei, who has also been with Hulu since the start, will be leading our audience business, which includes the consumer-facing web service and the many things that it comprises.

Below is a photo of Eric and me in China last week at our Beijing Development Center, now a thriving center for innovation located in the shadows of Tsinghua University, one of the top Computer Science programs in the country. I am so proud of Eric and the teams he has built, both in the States and in Beijing.

Thank you Eric, for everything.

Jason Kilar
jason@hulu.com
CEO, Hulu

Below is the email that Eric shared with the Hulu team a few hours ago:

During my nearly three years at Hulu, I’ve written a lot of emails. At last count, it was more than 33,000 messages on every imaginable topic from product specs to patent apps to performance reviews to press inquiries. I even once wrote an email to MC Hammer (yes, *that* Hammer …) about break-dancing videos. But this email is one I never thought I’d write.

It’s with a jumble of feelings that I’m announcing I will be leaving Hulu this summer and joining the incredibly talented Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers team as a partner and technical advisor to Vice President Al Gore. I’ve been able to share this news with many of you personally, but for others it may come as a surprise. For me, it’s still a surprise, and I’ve known about this longer than anyone.

Leaving Hulu was a difficult decision. My time here has been the most exciting, challenging and rewarding professional experience of my life. I could not be more proud of all that we’ve accomplished from our inauspicious beginning in the summer of 2007, to becoming the PC World product of the year, a Fast Company most innovative company, a Time Magazine invention of the year, and, most importantly, a brand that millions of people are so passionate about. From two team members to two hundred, from Beijing to Los Angeles, from an idea to a real sustainable business, working at Hulu has truly been a once-in-a-lifetime privilege. However I’ve recently been blessed with a rare and unexpected thing in life: a *twice* in a lifetime privilege.

Through coincidence and good fortune that continues to humble me, I’ve been offered the chance to contribute to the amazing innovation Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is helping pioneer, from new Internet and mobility ventures to life science breakthroughs to solutions for the Global Warming climate crisis. I’m eager to continue exploring my passion for digital technologies, and I’ve long aspired to become involved in the transformative solutions around greentech. I just never knew how or when that might happen until now. And I never thought now would come this soon.

July 16th will be my last day at Hulu, and while I’m thrilled at the new challenges that await, part of me will always regret leaving. But in this case, regret is a good thing — a very good thing. Because it’ll be a constant reminder that my time at Hulu was always more than a job; it was an experience. The people I worked with were more than my colleagues, they were my friends and family. And what we have accomplished was important, but not nearly as important as how we accomplished it. We have lived each day at Hulu with a hunger for innovation, an obsession with quality, a never-ending commitment to our customers and, above all else, an appreciation for the amazing journey we were on together. In the end, it’s the journey that mattered more than the destination, and that’s made all the difference.

My journey with Hulu will soon be over, but I leave knowing the team will continue on towards inspiring successes that are sure to exceed my wildest expectations. And you can count me as one of many passionate Hulu users who will be glued to my computer, tuning in every day, and eagerly awaiting the great things the team does next.

Your friend. Anytime. Anywhere.

Eric

PS. 非常感谢大家在过去几年里面的努力和帮助！ 祝福你们未来一切顺利，希望不久的将来还有机会见面，一起去卡拉ok，后会有期。

Today we’re releasing several exciting updates to Hulu, most notably a new version of the Hulu video player. We’ve posted an overview of the new player, complete with an introductory video, here. And you can experience the changes for yourself throughout the site. Given the breadth of the changes, what I thought I’d do here on the blog is give more of a behind-the-scenes look at the thinking that went into the new releases.

Let’s start with the new Hulu player. Around the office we referred to this as Project Voltron after the ’80s animated TV series. Just as five robot lions combined to form Voltron in that show, many different components came together to make up the new Hulu player. A convergence of several forces — the availability of new technologies, lingering ideas from the product team, and user feedback — underlie this refresh of our player, but the primary motivation remained the same as always: elevate the experience of watching videos on Hulu.

Adaptive Bitrate Streaming
The new player is written in ActionScript 3, and among other things, that enabled us to launch adaptive bitrate streaming. Previously, we could downshift the bitrate of our video stream if we detected the user experiencing video playback issues for reasons like diminished internet bandwidth. With adaptive bitrate streaming, we can now shift video bitrates and resolution up and down continually to match the user’s bandwidth. In the hierarchy of video playback issues, we believe frame rate inconsistency or video stuttering is more disruptive to users than a decrease in resolution, and adaptive bitrate streaming is designed for that prioritization.

You can turn on adaptive bitrate streaming in our new video settings menu in the player. That menu also allows you to force the player to stream at a fixed resolution of 480p, 360p, or 288p, but we recommend that you select adaptive bitrate streaming. When it’s on, you can rest easy knowing Hulu is offering you the smoothest playback at the highest resolution possible for your bandwidth.

Ad Volume Normalization
Another feature that will improve the viewing experience on Hulu is one you can’t see, but will hear, instead: ad volume normalization. There’s a widespread myth that broadcasters and even Hulu would boost commercial audio levels, but it’s just that, a myth. In the past, we tried to normalize ad volume to content volume globally, but that wasn’t a perfect fix because content comes to Hulu with differing audio levels, and you can only raise the audio levels so much before you’re simply magnifying background noise. In particular, many masters for older titles have really low audio levels, and producing new masters is often impossible or prohibitively expensive.

Our new ad volume normalization feature handles volume adjustments on the fly. As our player approaches an ad break, it begins analyzing the audio level of the content. When the ad is called, the player compares the content’s most recent audio levels with a precomputed audio value for the ad and brings them into line dynamically.

Closed Captioning Display
For closed captions, we’ve added two new display options in addition to our original white text display, so now you can also choose yellow text, or white text on a solid black background. Each of the new options should improve the visibility of captions for most scenarios.

Seek Preview
When you hover your mouse cursor on our new player timeline, we now display a preview thumbnail of that spot in the video. This should vastly improve the accuracy of seeking around in a video. Since seeking past an ad break can trigger an advertisement before the video resumes playing, we wanted to do as much as possible to ensure our users get to the exact moment they’re searching for on the first try.

Heat Map
If you don’t have an exact moment in mind but are curious to discover particular moments of interest within a full episode or full-length movie, we’ve now ported the heat map from our captions tab to the drop-down pane below the player. Captions and the heat map never had any intrinsic relationship, and this move allows us to display the heat map on all long-form videos, even those without captions.

The width of the heat map aligns to the width of the new timeline exactly. The heights of the bars in the heat map indicate the relative popularity of various sections of that video. Hover over any bar and the corresponding preview thumbnail will appear above the video timeline. Click on any bar to jump to that place in the video. The heat map in conjunction with the visual timeline adds another powerful tool to the viewer’s seek toolbox.

A Bigger, Sleeker Player
That’s a look under the hood of the new player. We’ve also refreshed the design. For starters, we wanted to increase the size of our base in-browser player. We no longer scale the 480p video down. At its native resolution of 720 x 404px, our new video player is 25 percent larger in viewing area than our previous player.

The default view of the player is now chromeless, meaning it’s clear of any controls, which gives it a cleaner look. The old Hulu player had a timeline visible at all times, but the new player displays the timeline only on mouseover and keeps the timeline height and width fixed.

The fullscreen button has shifted to the lower right of the player. The new location is also consistent across all the different incarnations of our player: regular, fullscreen, pop-out, embed, and off-Hulu (i.e. on our distribution partner sites like Yahoo). Many web video players have the fullscreen button there, and this control is used frequently enough that adhering to this unofficial standard location seemed prudent.

We’ve also renamed continuous play “autoplay” and have shifted the controls into the player itself. Previously those controls sat outside the player in a continuous play bar, but this feature generates enough usage to have earned a permanent integration into our player controls. At the same time, we’ve reduced the autoplay control footprint by replacing the “next video” button with the more universal icon for skip and by moving the autoplay playlist selector into a pop-over menu.

In the old player, we had a left and right column outside the player that held additional controls like pop-out or embed. These have all moved to the right of the player now. Since the player itself is bigger, menus for options like embedding or sharing videos have grown in size also. Rather than add more options with the additional real estate, we’ve left the controls largely the same as it lends a more airy, spacious feel.

You can still customize the start and end points of the video you share, as well as select a custom thumbnail for any video you wish to embed. With the increased timeline width in those menus, it’s easier to do so with precision. The one new option is the ability to select between two sizes of video player to embed.

We made a few other subtle design updates. When you pause a video, the buffer indicator is now at the top, and we now display the current video resolution to its left. In pause mode we used to display a large play icon in the center of the video player as a cue. We’ve shrunk that button, and after a few seconds of inactivity, it now fades out completely and only returns on mouseover. Lastly, our new player will shrink the video window down when it encounters end credits, devoting more player real estate to suggest other videos to watch. We can tell from view-through data that most users aren’t interested in the end credits. But if you are, you can still restore full-size view with one click. We won’t shrink end credits if the show inserts additional content after the end credits.

An Aside on HTML5
Those are the highlights of our new player. Before we move on to the other updates to our site today, let me address a related topic that’s been in the news a lot recently: HTML5. Plenty of users and members of the press ask about this topic all the time.

When it comes to technology, our only guiding principle is to best serve the needs of all of our key customers: our viewers, our content partners who license programs to us, our advertisers, and each other. We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn’t yet meet all of our customers’ needs. Our player doesn’t just simply stream video, it must also secure the content, handle reporting for our advertisers, render the video using a high performance codec to ensure premium visual quality, communicate back with the server to determine how long to buffer and what bitrate to stream, and dozens of other things that aren’t necessarily visible to the end user. Not all video sites have these needs, but for our business these are all important and often contractual requirements.

That’s not to say these features won’t be added to HTML5 in the future (or be easier to implement). Technology is a fast-moving space and we’re constantly evaluating which tools will best allow us to fulfill our mission for as many of our customers as possible.

That’s a look at the new Hulu player. Let’s turn to advertising.

Introducing Ad Tailor
The launch of the new Hulu player today also enables us to release a new ad personalization feature which we call Ad Tailor. The goal of Ad Tailor is to increase the relevance of ads for our viewers.

Ad Tailor works in two ways. One is that we now offer the user the option to give us immediate feedback on every video ad’s relevance. In the upper right of every video ad, we ask “Is this ad relevant to you?” and offer a yes and a no button. These buttons replace our old “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” buttons on ads. The new wording is deliberate since the thumbs up and down iconology might suggest that we were interested primarily in your subjective opinion of the ad creative when what’s more critical for us is understanding whether the product or service being shown is relevant to you. We can’t alter our advertisers’ creative, but we can control which ads we show you. We’ll use your feedback to adjust which ads we show you in the future.

Ad Tailor tries to improve ad relevance in another way. Occasionally, when you’re watching a video, we’ll also serve up a single or multi-question survey in place of an advertisement. Answer any single question and we’ll return you to your video immediately, and answer any multiple question survey and we’ll reward you with some ad-free viewing. Answering these questions is always optional, and any responses given will be kept confidential.

The more efficiently we can match ads up with users, the more everyone benefits. Users see more relevant ads, and advertisers reach a more targeted and receptive audience.

When we use Ad Tailor to personalize an ad we show you, you’ll see a brief visual cue at the start of the ad: in the upper right corner we’ll display “This ad brought to you by Ad Tailor.” The more feedback you provide, the more we’ll be able to personalize the selection of ads we show you.

More Customization
The last update to our site today is a refresh of our three homepages: the main Hulu homepage, the TV homepage, and the Movies homepage.

One of the primary goals of the homepage refreshes was to add a new layer of personalization. If you’re signed in to Hulu, we’ll recommend shows just for you in the masthead at the top of the page. You can now change what we display in the left two columns of all three homepages through the dropdown header, and we’ll retain your preferences from session to session. We’ve added a My Videos section to each homepage that allows signed-in Hulu users to look at their queue, subscriptions and viewing history without leaving the homepage. At the bottom of all three homepages, just above the footer, we’ve added a recommendations carousel. If you’re signed in, we’ll recommend shows based on your past viewing, but if you’re not logged in, we’ll pull from a long list of our favorite shows and movies from our catalog.

Other changes to the layout of the homepage balance what we’ve learned from user behavior on the site and what we’re interested in helping users discover in the months to come. Like many sites, we’re constantly striking a balance between surfacing what users already like and what they don’t know they will like. With our catalog having grown to hundreds of content partners and thousands of titles, the most efficient way to do that is evolving.

Here in Los Angeles, where the weather seems to be sunny every day, it’s easy to lose track of what season it is. But we like to think of this as a spring refresh. As always, your feedback is welcome.

Happy viewing,
Eugene Wei (eugene.wei@hulu.com)
VP of Product, Hulu

Update: We have started a discussions thread for updates from our support team here.