Hulu, LLC, dba Hulu Plus

About a year and a half ago I got fed up with cable (Comcast). I was sick of my rates going up and up, and without another option to switch to (no U-​verse in my neighborhood and HOA against Dish) I decided the best thing to do was to cut the cord.
Truthfully, cutting the cord did result in me «losing» a few shows, but realistically I probably watch too much tv anyways and a reduction of some stupid reality shows never hurt no one, so cord cutting is the life for me!
Of course with cord cutting means careful consideration of what apps you’re now going to watch tv on. As watching some shows immediately after airing is a must in my life, getting hulu was a must.
Overall I’m pretty happy with hulu. Like I said, I lost some shows, and some you still need to wait ~ a year for the entire content to get uploaded (versus each new episode appearing the next day) but I gained some shows as well, and they sometimes have some decent movie options.
My major complaint with hulu is the queue, or now called Watchlist, which has in the past decided to remove a show for me resulting in me forgetting I was waiting for an entire season of something to appear. Never mind though, my memory still works and I was able to remember something was missing.
As far as original content I’m also pretty pleased. Casual is amazing if you’re not already watching.
The app itself (I use Amazon Fire Stick) is one of the least buggy (I also use HBO GO and Sling), so I’m pleased there too.

You pay to watch and they spy on everything that you visit on the web! They only stop spying if you opt out. An honest company would have «opt out» as the default, but not greedy Hulu!

They got the best up to date shows. But their service SUCKS!!! I can’t even believe I’m writing a review about Hulu. You’ve got a 30 – 70 chance that it will work all the way through a particular show. It’s literally a project to watch one show with it loading and stopping. Sucks so bad!!!

I have to revise this review. I had to completely log out. However I no longer have a cue and have to jump through hoops to find a show and keep a chart as to where I am. So. Thare you have it.
PLEASE BOYCOTT HULU! There is no longer a free option. Right in the middle of a show I was watching. Don’t have a tv. We only stream. We see the ads but they had to get greedier. PLEASE DO NOT SUBSCRIBE. KEEP HULU FREE!

They do there best

I really like Hulu. It’s a great compliment to Netflix & cable. I use it mostly for binge watching TV shows that aren’t available on the 2 prior listed services. Only a few small issues. It seems to have trouble connecting to my wi-​fi, where as Netflix connection is seamless and FAST. Hulu has never ending connection issues. Not while watching a show, but when loading a new show, fast forwarding, and operations like that. But other than moderate connection issues, & less than ideal design for use, no real complaints. In fact, quite a deal! But take my advise, and spend the extra few bucks on the «commercial free» version. VERY worth the extra cost!!!

I have a love hate relationship with Hulu.
During certain times of the year Hulu can be pretty awesome. I like the layout of their «Queue» and new addition of «Shows You Watch» (much easier to use) but their lineup this year fell flat and during the summer/​late winter months I honestly feel like I’m throwing money out a window because they have almost nothing coming in.
But to backtrack a bit, I like having several shows I enjoy all in once place with a consistently working window player (Logo/​Lifetime I’m lookin at your shifty broke selves). I pay for Hulu Plus no commercials and find it’s worth it for The Voice and Brooklyn 99 alone.
That being said, I don’t like how they advertise their new seasons and feel like I have trouble finding new programming that I’ll enjoy. The Amazon lineup this year was really great, and if I’d only been using Hulu like I used to I’d have missed The Magicians and The Shannara Chronicles or Dark Matter on Netflix.
I simply feel like Hulu is just not working as hard in bringing in new fresh programming, and falling back on advertising their movies — which I’ve found some fantastic diamonds in. I also wish they’d stream live (puppybowl as an example would be fantastic). I definitely feel their scope has narrowed in the past year or so, and not gotten bigger.
It’s probably only a matter of time before I switch over completely to Amazon, especially if they keep scoring the shows I want to watch, but for right now I’m probably going to start cancelling my Plus during the dry season and see if that bumps them into thinking ahead.
Money talks I spose.

When Hulu works, it’s an inexpensive streaming service. However, it’s reasonable cost is due to advertising and 8 times out of 10 the ads mess us the streaming. At best, you lose sound or picture, at worst you get kicked out. Just about ready to throw in the towel and quit the service.

Lamee

I read may of the reviews here laugh at a few, shook my head at others, and had to stop reading when it was so horrible I just could not believe what I was reading.
I have both Netflix and Hulu, why you ask. Well think about Hulu’s new ad, «Watch this season, this season.»
Both my wife and I work long hours during the week. So on Friday nights is our date night when we come home order the kids pizza and we fix popcorn and watch our favorite TV shows for the week. If i only had Netflix I would have to wait 3 – 6 months before it would air. We canceled our Cable and only watch 2 or 3 movies in the theaters. With our larger UHD TV and awesome home audio speakers why paid $ 24 – 32 for two tickets when the covers a month of service for both Hulu and Netflix.
I read the problems about black screen is not a Hulu problem that’s a device issue. When watching in Hulu hit the pause button and then hit the up arrow. This will allow you to drop the bit rate of the movie you are watching. On my labtop I have to drop it to 650 kb/​s while on my Smart TV I can pump it up to 3.2Mb/s. Netflix does not offer you that options because they forward a lower bit rate no matter what.
What’s the difference? Image quality.
The reason your system stalls is because it can not handle the information coming and processing into and image on your screen.
To cancel with Hulu is super easy, go online, go into your account, subscription, and check the box that reads, «Cancel». That’s it! The next billing cycle you’re not going to get billed. Oh what, you do have to check a box why you are canceling.
For people like me that have a busy weekly schedule, Hulu is for you. Watch you TV shows when you want to and hey for a few bucks extra, no commercials. Ssshh, will let you on a little secret, if you cancel your cable bill, you will still save over $ 30 – 70 dollars a month. I do have to say the no commercials is not 100% no commercials because the Networks made a deal with a certain product that funds the show so the do have a commercial at the beginning and end of a program.
Hope this helps everyone.

Screen kept going black, Had to reboot every 5 to 10 minutes. No problem with Netflix. Called customer support after I cancelled (thought I should give them a second chance.) and he bordered on rude and since I cancelled he could not help me and wanted to transfer me to customer service (I was on my 6^th day of the 7 day free trial. Only 2^nd time I tried to watch, first time was the same way.) Customer service is horrible.

My roommate and I wanted to check out Hulu Plus for the week. I had an old free account from a while back that I had used, but since it had an old no longer in service email attached to it, I tried to sign up through my Facebook. Something went awry, and though I could log in with the new information, I couldn’t get into the account portion without a password from the old account, which I didn’t remember. Furthermore, it wanted to send the password link to the email which was an old
account (they don’t make those anymore.)
My roommate ended up signing up for Hulu Plus, and he paid for it on his account, so I spent most of the next couple of days trying to cancel mine, to no avail. Today, I was charged. I emailed Hulu explaining the situation, and Rene M. emailed me back promptly, politely cancelling the account and refunding my money, which I didn’t expect, but was very thankful for.
The service itself has been great thus far with few issues. The only issue other than the above that I have noticed is when my roommate went to link the Ps4 to his Hulu account (when it was already linked to mine), it froze the first time through.
Four stars for the prompt resolution of the issue, and minus one star just for the issues themselves. Otherwise, I would recommend this service.

Very unsatisfied with Hulu!
Tried the free week trial only had it for a hour before i unsubscribe my account. It never played a movie more than 15 minutes before it would tell me try later because of failure playback.
On top of that. I find it unorganized and frustrating in finding shows or movies.

I like it. I tried it for a month free and I am not extending but will come back and join again. It’s the kind of thing I do for a while, suspend my Netflix and then cancel and rejoin Netflix. You can cancel and rejoin with ease, not so with Amazon Prime. I like it.

I like that it has some shows that Netflix does not, but for the most part they have the same content except with Hulu Plus, you are paying to see 3 – 4 ads approximately every 7 minutes (I timed it). What gives? Most apps eliminate ads when you pay for the upgraded service. Why not Hulu? I feel like I can’t even really get into a show because it’s interrupted so frequently. Very disappointing. I thought I would get Hulu Plus for myself since I just use my aunts right now but after this discovery, I will stick to Netflix and HBO Go.

We were wanting to watch the funniest show ever, Seinfeld, so we signed up for the free seven days of Hulu. We were so excited. Got our popcorn and soda and pressed play. We just looked at a black screen.
Cut to the point, we will be canceling. The screen goes black for extended periods of time. Long periods of time. Didn’t we all learn a long time ago that, at the very least, we need something to show us the progress of the download?
Not with Hulu. Just a black screen!!! And then there are the FREE commercials? Really?
Seinfeld is one of the funniest shows ever. Too bad Netflix didn’t sign the deal.

I mean, I work here so I had to come. haha awesome office though!

I haven’t written a Unilocal review in a while, but I have come to abhor Hulu Plus so much that I can’t think of anywhere else to express it. The commercials are annoying, but they’re the least of my problem. Using Hulu Plus on a recommended device (Samsung Smart TV with pre-​loaded Hulu app) HARD WIRED to my internet network does not resolve the app crashing several times a day, and the images on each age never totally loading, and the shows constantly going to black screen or buffering, or crashing the app.
I appreciate having next day access to favorite shows like The Daily Show or shows on ABC, NBC, and FOX. I can even live with the repetitive commercials. There is no CBS content, and very limited «basic cable» programming, except for some Comedy Central. Hulu’s in-​house content isn’t very good — Netflix is blowing them out of the water.
I’m about to move, and I will be canceling Hulu Plus for over-​the-​air network television and online content access.

What’s with the commercials on a paid subscription service!!! Will give them 5 stars when they lose them all together. If I don’t drop the service all together before they do.

Freezes several times a minute.
Starts programs over all the time.
Netflix works much better.
Not worth paying for it anymore.

I was a skeptic. Wasn’t sure what it was or how it was supposed to work. Tried it, found my shows and yes, I love it!

We got rid of cable to save some money. I picked up an Amazon Fire TV box and subscribed to Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu+. Amazon Prime and Netflix work well. Streaming is good on both and Netflix has the shows we enjoy. Now on to Hulu+, the available shows we enjoy are more than adequate. The commercials are irritating considering I pay a monthly fee. I can get past the commercials because they do have several old school shows, but the streaming part of Hulu is HORRIBLE!!! When it does finally load the selected show, we frequently get a black screen with nothing, or the picture freezes for a while and we only have sound. I have tried the fixes recommended by Hulu and it’s still the same issues. Hulu is the only service giving us this problem. Get it right Hulu or we are gone!

Horrible. I was actually enjoying my Hulu Plus subscription. But finances are tight and I’m just trying to cut corners where I can, and so Hulu was getting the boot. I logged on to cancel my subscription and was offered what I read as 6 months free. And I was thinking, sweet! This gives me a chance to get things in order. And the plan was to resubscribe after 6 months.
After a month, they started charging me. So I emailed them. They were very responsive. They refunded that month, but then they cancelled my subscription altogether. I was confused. I was expecting to have a free membership until January. It’s September.
This morning I called and explained the situation. The guy on the phone could not have cared less about me or my situation. He was like, «Yeah, no, we don’t offer anything like that.» Here’s the thing: It’s possible that I read six months and what it actually said was one month. I make mistakes from time to time as easily as the next guy. But you don’t have to make me feel like schmuck for it. The guy was so rude on the phone. And I was calling up to be all pushy and defensive. I was just calling to figure out the situation. But whatever.
I’m not interested in supporting a company that could obviously not care less about their customer’s experience. You’re offering a service which you want people you pay for? You should treat your customers like you give a shit about the fact that they are spending their money on you.
No more Hulu for me.

Seriously? I was ok to pay $ 7.99/mo so I could watch the Daily Show and Colbert while doing cardio at the gym. The commercials were a pain, but now they’ve up’d it 3 30-​sec commercials in the first program breaks. And of course, if you decide to rewind, then you’ll have to watch the commercials again.
No more! I would rather Tivo the shows and listen to the radio at the gym. Good Riddance!

My biggest problem with Hulu plus is not the ads, but the fact that the streaming wouldn’t work. I constantly got a critical error message that asked me to restart my app only to receive it again upon doing so. I went through their tech support, but they didn’t do much beyond giving me free service for a couple of months. It’s a shame because they have some good exclusive content. You just can’t watch it.

When is a 2 star review good for a business? You guessed right. Only when it is the highest review they have.
This internet television network has a paid and a free option. The free option limits the breadth offerings and the subscription lets you see additional content. You would think that the payment plan would eliminate the ads that they show you. Nope, you still have to watch ads.
You watch the same ad over and over again never want to see that product.
But that is not the worst of it. The software back end has a glitch and displays a prompt «click to enable ads» when it feels like it. the link takes you to a page that does not have a solution. it tells you how to set the preferences that better enable their ads to stream at you.
But that is not the problem — they do not even know what the problem is! I wrote up a ticket (which is recommended if their solution does not work), The technician then will ask you to do a bunch of crap to test it
hint
/​/​/​/​/​they already know that it will not work when they tell you to do this/​/​/​/​/​
So you do a bunch of tedious legwork thinking that it will fix things and send the response back. They then admit that there is no known solution to the problem.
WAY TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS HULU!
You then get this” I just wanted to send a quick follow-​up to see if everything’s
all taken care of, or if there’s anything else I can help you with.
If you’re all set, you can let me know or I’ll just mark this as resolved if I
don’t hear from you in the next few days.”
This is how they get rid of you. but if you reply telling them that they actually gave you no solution they have one more tier of support.
Here is the last step in the response chain, essentially letting you know that they have been only pretending to care all along.
I’m really sorry about the continued trouble with ads on our site. Unfortunately,
we don’t have any steps that can workaround this issue at the moment.
I really wish there was more that I could do to help in the meantime, but at
this time we’ll have to wait for the developers to fix it on the back end in
order to get it working again.
SO there you have it, customer service at it’s worst!

Hulu is by far the shittiest movie app in the world if I wanted commercials I would watch tv!!! Your application is slow and always restarts in the middle of the shows when I try to fast forward to the part you shut down at I get more commercials I hope that you go out of business in the close future to anyone thinking about changing from nexflix think twice nexflix is a way better application

Re: Hulu +
yes, I concur with the reviewer. They do not have the model right. Yet it seems to me is such a direct fix. No doubt there are pressures to keep the biz the way it is. The pickle is, they (huhu) gets this feedback on all this directly from their customers and yet they do not (or choose not) to comprehend.
my review here:

Holy commercials batman!
Other popular streaming providers of the same price have zero commercials whatsoever. Then there also are many free streaming services available that carry a tolerable commercial load in exchange for their free services.
Hulu Plus is a paid service yet carries a higher commercial load than even the free services. It’s painful to watch just a single episode because they have so many lengthy commercial interruptions. Hulu states on its website that current episodes of popular shows are expensive and thus require the commercials if the streaming model is to be feasible. That’s understandable.
Yet Hulu contradicts its very own logic. For instance, if you go and watch older episodes on your paid Hulu streaming account, these older shows still carry a massive commercial load. Yet the identical episodes are legally available *and* commercial free on other paid streaming services.
So which is it Hulu? Are the commercials required to bring these streaming services to market, a plausible explanation for very recent and popular shows? Or is Hulu taking advantage of their paying subscribers by shoving a massive commercial load down the throats of cable cutters for less expensive older episodes which are available commercial free on other paid streaming services?
I think it is both. And for that, I say goodbye to your service. It was (not) nice knowing you for the very brief time that I was a paid subscriber. I’ll send my dollars elsewhere.