it looks like it is coming but, anyone have any date yet, this is the one thing i am waiting for before i say i fell in love with this product
I gave up on Hulu for the Hub…Looks like user have been asking this question since June of last year. I installed Playon on my server and stream Hulu to my Hub and it works great.
does it play HD
No, not yet. Playon says that it is working on this, but as of now they don’t support HD. According to the guys at Playon, you’ll need a fairly powerful PC to do on the fly transcoding of the HD content, I don’ really know what they mean by that but there has been mention of needing a quad-core, or at least a dual-core.
Can you further explain how to do this tinwarble
Have not heard of anyone streaming anything like that to the hub?
Please explain what play on is and how we can also do this … would love to be able to stream TV shows to the hub
There website explains it all.
It’s basically a pretty full-featured DLNA application that runs as a service on the PC.
My wife and I use it all the time to go see old TV shows, mostly on Hulu. (Actually, Hulu us about all we use.)
As Tony said, it is a DLNA media server. All you do is download it to your PC, then run the app. Once it’s running you can access it by going to the HUB, select “FIles” then use “Select Content Source” to select “Media Server”, there you should see Playon. Once you have Playon running on the HUB, just select which app you what to run, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc. then browse by folder.
You will want to open Playon on your PC and enter your User names & Password for the sites that you have them for. Just click on the Channels tab, enter your USER/PASSWORD then click on Test to make sure it’s working.
Once you do all that you are good to go. Don’t forget to look at the Plugins page, there are third party Plugins that Playon doesn’t officially offer that allow you to access different content.
when I won a hub on Twitter playing the WD trivia, the question asked what internet services you could access via the hub and the correct answers they gave were “Congrats, @ TravisZepp! You just won a WD TV Live Hub! Correct answers included Hulu, Netflix, Facebook, Pandora, Blockbuster, YouTube”
any other cool **bleep** like play on that we can use on the hub that some of us wouldn’t know about?
If this is true then it is the last thing that will make me take the plung and buy the WD Hub…I’ve been looking at every other NMP in the world and reading every flippin manual. The WD Hub seems the best bang-for-the buck and plugging the Hulu hole is a big one !!! If WD is listening your feature and pricing strategy is a GREAT one. Basically, what I mean is if I wanted to pay $350-$500 for a hardware media product I’d either buy a PC or a NAS that streams. The $99 Live+ and $199 Hub are terrific price points to jump in…wish the Hub was about $149 though. Anyway, the idea is this lasts several years and at the point the Hub’s engine/hardware is outdated I have no problem scrapping and buying next product. My hope is that WD’s commitment to upgrades/etc to the Hub gives is 3+ years life for the investment. My struggle has been Live+ vs Hub but the 1TB HDD and performance seems to be worth the jump up (but at my ceiling of what I’ll pay for NMP)…I would have to buy a new USB HDD anyway with the Live+.
So, I know I ranted on…any “official” info on Hulu support ? WD folks ?
I assume a future firmware upgrade to do so ?
No timeline from WD yet on Hulu+ support but the Hulu website optimistically claims it is “coming soon”. Yes, it’ll be bundled into a future firmware update. WD’s usual style is to not announce these things ahead of time, so we’ll only find out the day it’s released. 
PixelPower wrote:
No timeline from WD yet on Hulu+ support but the Hulu website optimistically claims it is “coming soon”. Yes, it’ll be bundled into a future firmware update. WD’s usual style is to not announce these things ahead of time, so we’ll only find out the day it’s released.
WOW…bundled in a future firmware update…lmao, after that last firmware update debacle released by WD many have sworn not to flash any future firmware updates. Also, the last time I checked HULU was a free service but they want you to pay a premium for plus in order to stream content to other devices. If this is the only feature that separates HULU from HULU+ then I think I will pass.
PlayOn and TVersity seem to be the best DNLA options at this point in the game, but the $39.99 pricetag for PlayOn seems a bit much. TVersity is free and is the best sevice I’ve found to allow streaming of content from PC to TV
There are free versions of both TVersity & Playon, but I believe that with the free version (at least I know this to be true with Playon) you can’t access HULU. Both also come with a trial period I believe.
On the TVersity site it says that HULU is not available on the free version. See LINK. And TVersity Pro is $39.99 also.
On a side note, there is also ORB, which I know nothing about and I don’t really know what it does other than it is supposed to be a media server. But I thought I would mention it for anyone who wants to try it.
OG_CpTHOOK wrote:
PlayOn and TVersity seem to be the best DNLA options at this point in the game, but the $39.99 pricetag for PlayOn seems a bit much. TVersity is free and is the best sevice I’ve found to allow streaming of content from PC to TV
You can’t stream any premium content via TVersity unless you buy the Pro version, which is also $39.99.
The only set top boxes offering regular “free” (Ad Supported) Hulu are doing so via dubious workarounds that are against Hulu’s ToS and I believe Hulu actively try to block Boxee from streaming its content that way.
The Hulu+ option is Hulu’s only official channel for streaming directly to set top and mobile devices.
You’re not going to find any media player streaming Hulu legitimately any other way.
-edit-
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to watch standard Hulu with Ads for free using my Hub. That’s just not their business model for the STB market.
I also don’t want to be reliant on a PC being constantly switched on to stream media to the Hub, plus paying $40 for more software that they won’t update for free after 12 months is beyond the pale (PlayOn requires a $20/year sub for updates; TVersity states a 50% annual maintenance, which I assume means $20/year for updates).
Sure, I don’t expect updates and improvements from other software developers forever (e.g. Adobe for Photoshop) but then again, they won’t suddenly stop working if a content provider changes API. The business models TVersity and PlayOn are using rub me the wrong way…
PixelPower wrote:
You can’t stream any premium content via TVersity unless you buy the Pro version, which is also $39.99.
You’re right about that and I should’ve been more clear with my position and the features that I look for in a media server!
TVersity is about the best media streamer out there, in my opinion, that facilitates the streaming of my personel media collection from PC to HUB FOR FREE! I have loads of HD movies over 10gb that I cannot stream wirelessly from PC to HUB without the studder and choppy video play while using the NetworkShare feature from HUB. But with TVersity, I can stream those same larger size videos seamlessly without and degredation of video or audio up to about 25GB. Correct me if I am wrong, but PlayOn does not act as a DLNA server allowing personel content to be streamed from PC to HUB only internet services(Premium Content)… that is an aoutomatic deal breaker for 39bucks.
BUT… for those who want to stream HULU from PlayON… YES, not only can you stream from HULU but you have access to many other internet services through PlayON as well. As for me… the internet services offered by the HUB are plenty enough. If I want to watch premium content(Vintage TV shows ect) I just torrent the content I want to watch and then add it to the hub.
Makes no sence to make efforts to cut the CABLETV cord if other services like PlayON come along and try to pick up the money you are trying to save from eliminating the Cable Co…!!!
OG_CpTHOOK wrote:
You’re right about that and I should’ve been more clear with my position and the features that I look for in a media server!
TVersity is about the best media streamer out there, in my opinion, that facilitates the streaming of my personel media collection from PC to HUB FOR FREE! I have loads of HD movies over 10gb that I cannot stream wirelessly from PC to HUB without the studder and choppy video play while using the NetworkShare feature from HUB. But with TVersity, I can stream those same larger size videos seamlessly without and degredation of video or audio up to about 25GB. Correct me if I am wrong, but PlayOn does not act as a DLNA server allowing personel content to be streamed from PC to HUB only internet services(Premium Content)… that is an aoutomatic deal breaker for 39bucks.
BUT… for those who want to stream HULU from PlayON… YES, not only can you stream from HULU but you have access to many other internet services through PlayON as well. As for me… the internet services offered by the HUB are plenty enough. If I want to watch premium content(Vintage TV shows ect) I just torrent the content I want to watch and then add it to the hub.
Makes no sence to make efforts to cut the CABLETV cord if other services like PlayON come along and try to pick up the money you are trying to save from eliminating the Cable Co…!!!
Just a heads-up that PlayOn does act as a DLNA server for your own videos, music and photos. ;) It’s very, very similar to TVersity in terms of features. I’m not really sure what the major differences are between them (if any).
When my Vista partition was still working (darn Hackintosh experiment broke things!), I used to use TVersity (free edition) to stream the occasional video and numerous internet radio stations / shoutcast. Works very well and, like you say, media servers seem more efficient at streaming content than SAMBA, so films that stutter from network shares play smoothly from TVersity. It’s a nice piece of software.
I now use Twonky on my NAS (came with it), which does the job but obviously lacks TVersity’s ability to stream premium content (not that I did) and shoutcast / internet radio streams. I use the free ZappoTV App on my iPad to access ShoutCast now, and also push HD YouTube videos to the Hub. Worth grabbing if you have any Apple hardware :)
Tinwarble wrote:
On a side note, there is also ORB, which I know nothing about and I don’t really know what it does other than it is supposed to be a media server. But I thought I would mention it for anyone who wants to try it.
Thanks for the info, I am always looking for new servers to try out. I’ll keep you posted on my findings!!
Also, are there any media severs out there that offer the streaming of live content such as sports from sites like ATDHE and JustinTV?? Now this is the type of service I would consider paying for.
PixelPower wrote:
Just a heads-up that PlayOn does act as a DLNA server for your own videos, music and photos. ;) It’s very, very similar to TVersity in terms of features. I’m not really sure what the major differences are between them (if any).
Not that it matters… but I did try the PlayOn free trial and I could not add my personal files to the server. I may have been doing something wrong when I tried. But PlayOn does not offer any free services, so i cannot go back and try because my trial has expired.
Actually Playon does have a free service, which only includes streaming of your personal files which is called PlayonLite.
As stated on Playon’s site:
"PlayOn Lite is absolutely 100% free for all users! It gives you access to “My Media” (all your local media files from your PC and home network), as well as the Pandora radio channel. No matter whether you buy a PlayOn license or not, you will always be able to use the PlayOn software for My Media and Pandora. Forever. For free."
