Hulu coming to Roku? Maybe, maybe not

Does Playboy have it right?

(Credit: Zatz Not Funny)

When we last heard from Roku, the company was pledging to add 10 more channels to its Roku Digital Video Player before the end of the year. With 2009 almost half over, however, there's still only two: Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand. But according to Playboy Magazine, one of those new channels could well be Hulu. So notes blogger Dave Zatz, who photographed the incriminating sidebar article from the June 2009 issue of the magazine. "Roku promises Hulu support is coming" says the throwaway parenthetical sentence.

But is it true? Responding to the Playboy excerpt highlighted by Zatz, a Roku spokesman contacted by CNET replied, "We're not sure where that came from. We have not made any public statements regarding Hulu."

If you're keeping score at home, that's really neither a confirmation nor a denial that Hulu's on the way to Roku--just an indication that Roku didn't make any on-the-record comments to Playboy on the subject.

So, will we be seeing Hulu on the Roku--or any other non-PC device this year? Your guess is as good as mine. Like the bulk of the early commenters on Zatz's post, I'm skeptical: Hulu's jousting with Boxee and its recent well-received desktop application show that the streaming service is taking pains to remain PC-bound. But I hope I'm wrong.

What do you think? Share your thoughts below.

[zipityzap]

John - the Roku box has very limited utility. Today you can get Netflix and Amazon streaming. Big deal. There's thousands of websites where you can watch live streaming Internet television from around the world. Why limit yourself to just a few? Connect your PC to your TV and you are not limited to where you can go and what you can do. PCTVCables.com

[McCormick97]

Lame advertising plug from zipitzap there. I've tried connecting my laptop directly to my TV...it sucks. You need to boot the computer, or leave it switched on all the time. Then you need a wireless keyboard/trackball to be able to navigate from the couch. I bought a Roku box, and it's great. It's unobtrusive and easy to use. It is limited by not being able to browse and add to your netflix queue from the TV, but it's still superior to the experience I had connecting my laptop to my TV. Adding more channels to the Roku box will be great, if navigation and channel selection is built-in (it is for Amazon).

[wdmiller]

I have Roku. The problem is the user interface. To watch movies, I have to fo to my PC, bring up Netflix, Add a movie to my "instant queue". Go back to my TV, Bring up Roku and scroll through 100+ title to find the one I just added, and then play it. Other than the interface, the box is great.

[ellipses1]

I agree with flipping through a bunch of movies to find what I want... but it's not like you HAVE to go to your computer first every time... just put a couple hundred things in the queue while you are at work and then forget about it for a couple weeks.

[Rod Roddy]

vudu *cough* :P

[Weeji]

@zipityzap

I only half agree with McCormick97. While I do have a HTPC connected to my TV, and have a slick, easy-to-navigate (without a mouse and keyboard, mind you) GUI in MediaPortal set up on it, streaming flash video from it to the TV has always been less than awesome. Since web-based flash video still isn't fully hardware accelerated, upscaling any flash video to 1080p through the web makes for choppy playback. I still have yet to try the Hulu desktop app, which might alleviate this problem. I even use my XBox 360 to watch netflix streaming movies due to this issue, so I understand why a set-top box would possibly be a better solution.

[BCF1968]

Hulu has issues with Boxee because Boxee attempted to delete the ads in the shows. This is well known and why you aren't aware of this is beyond me. If Boxee had played nice and kept the ads in ther wouldn't be a problem. Hulu doesn't have a problem with PlayOn now do they?

[RobD60]

Hulu for Roku is a no-brainer, or should be. The Roku box itself is a no-brainer. I've used mine for 3 months, and it beats hooking my laptop to the set. The HDMI factor is a big plus; my laptop had only S-video. Yeah, I've got (currently) 105 films on my queue. What can I say? My ISP handles 720p streams, so I think I'd be fine with Hulu's HD streams on my TV. At least, NCIS HD on NetFlix streams well. . . .

[Maturus]

Hulu can be played on a TV via xbox 360. Just try MediaMall's "Playon" I use it. I love it!!!

[bobertp]

I also have Playon and love it for watching Hulu through my Xbox. However if given a choice I would prefer to watch on the Roku box. I have had plenty of frustrating experiences with Playon; getting knocked offline, Hulu not connecting for periods of time, if you try to skip back more often than not it crashes whatever video you're watching and you can only start from the beginning because skipping ahead rarely works either. Please Roku, add Hulu (at least add something, it's been a long wait for the promised 9 channels).