Through a weird quirk I have found myself subscribed to all three television and movie streaming services. It's been a couch potato's paradise around here.
I've had a Netflix account for years. Then the fine folks at Xbox offered a week of Hulu Plus for free. Hulu Plus then offered another month free if I signed up, which I did. I recently switched to DirectTV and found myself in the three month trial period for HBO when HBOGo debuted which meant I got that too.
Let's start with the positives. All three services work really well. They play on iPhones, my phone of choice. Hulu and Netflix are both on my x-box and Netflix is on the Apple TV in the bedroom. Sadly, I can't stream Hulu and HBOGo to my Apple TV from my phone. That should work, it would work but Apple, Hulu and HBOGo have it blocked, for now. Someone needs to make a deal.
Netflix has the widest selection of streaming content, HBOGo has darn near everything HBOGo ever produced and Hulu has, well, lots of stuff including complete runs of Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and season 2 of Glee.
Netflix has season 1 of Glee. Here's another bit of strangeness the complete Larry Sanders Show is on Netflix, not HBOGo.
Also, nerds, I mean quality television consumers, will want to know that the new Battlestar Galactica is on Hulu while Babylon 5 is on Netflix. Buffy and Angel are both on Netflix.
Star Trek The Original Series and The Animated series (guh) is on Hulu. The new JJ Abrams Star Trek movie is on Netflix.
Weird right?
Also, I hate entertainment lawyers.
OK so what's wrong with the services? Sometimes, and to be fair it's pretty rare, Netflix, HBOGo and Hulu can all be a bit dodgy at times. I tried to watch Season 1 of the FX spy spoof Archer on Netflix and one episode, episode 6, won't play. Well, that's not entirely true, it plays 3 seconds and then shuts off.
It may be my Internet connection but I'm running the fastest service my provider offers.
Hulu, has some shows you can watch on iPhones and on the XBox and some that you can only watch at a computer terminal. That's just terrible and reminds me, yet again, that I hate entertainment lawyers.
Also, Hulu Plus, the service you pay good money for, has commercials. I call them the 30 seconds of infinite sorrow.
HBOGo has one bit of, I imagine, lawyer craziness. You can only watch HBOGo on one device at a time. Which means I can't watch one show on one device while my wife watches another on a second device even though we are theoretically paying for the service.
HBOGo is only available to HBO subscribers on certain cable companies. A practice that HBO should end by starting a subscription service just for HBOGo.
Ultimately, Netflix is still winning but Hulu is gaining ground and HBOGo shows other premium providers the way to go.
