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Beta Hulu Support PDF Print E-mail
Written by Martin Millmore   

As noted by Stuart over at The Digital Lifestyle, I have released a version of TunerFree MCE that integrates with Hulu. It's most definitley a beta at the moment because of a number of issues;

1) First and foremost, I am in the UK, and Hulu is US only, so I have difficulty testing!
2) Hulu has a massive amount of content - over 6 thousand TV Episodes and feature films alone (I ignored the clips and trailers). This is 6 times larger than the UK content that I have restricted to up until now. I have enough memory on my 6GB/64 bit development box, but know it may overpower the average living room PC. I have plans for how to fix that though. Done
3) I can't get hulu to automatically play when I launch the full screen flash player. 
I can't get hulu to automatically go full screen when I launch the flash player, but it does automatically play. I figured that was the better of the two options.You need to click with the mouse at the moment for full screen. Sucks, I know, but hoping to find a solution soon.
Now goes full screen too
4) No way is it going to work on extenders, because of the flash player. Yes, transcoding would be great, but that's another level of complexity that I am not tackling just yet
5) Although it has both US and UK content, I haven't implemented a proxy switcher yet. Done
6) Out of the box both UK and US programs are enabled, which is not going to work for many people. US people can't watch the UK content and vice versa. I want to add a choice in the installer to limit to one country out of the box. Done
7) I haven't got a good feel yet for what curve-balls hulu may add in their data, so there is an outside possibility of a crash when collecting the data if they make an unexpected change. Looking stable so far

Here's a few pictures of what it looks like;

Comments (28)
  • Rob

    would you like to share how you got the player to open fullscreen?

  • Chris  - Hmm..

    I just downloaded the newest one and it definitely doesn't make it go full screen for me, it just instantly "pauses" whatever video I chose at about 8 seconds...

  • Martin

    If that's what you find, send me a full-screen screenshot so that I can get the data right for your screen resolution.

  • vincent  - doesn't work on 360 as extender

    I'm trying Tunerfree MCE, which works fine in Windows 7 Media Center. But the reason I installed it was so that I could stream Hulu to the Xbox360. Well, I found out that although the hulu site renders on the xbox360, any hulu content will not have any audio, and the video is very slow/choppy. Hope this will be fixed in a future version!

  • dave  - full screen

    I try to open the full screen and all I get is a black screen. I can still hear the sound but no picture. how do I fix this?

  • Martin  - Re: full screen

    What channel/program/episode? I'll try to reproduce.

  • dave  - full screen

    any family guy episode on hulu. just got a new toshiba laptop and don't know if there is a program or update I haven't downloaded yet that would help.

  • Martin  - Re: full screen

    Have you made sure flash is up to date? Have you checked it works in Internet Explorer?

  • dave  - full screen

    I have adobe 9 reader but not sure if working in internet explorer. not sure how to test

  • Martin  - Re: full screen

    You test by going to http://www.hulu.com/, browsing to you show, and pressing the Full Screen button.

  • dave  - full screen

    any family guy episode. I don't know if it makes a difference but I am trying on a new laptop that I got. a new toshiba.

  • John William Byrne  - Just installed

    I just installed, but neither UK or US content will work for me in BBC, C4 etc or Hulu stuff. I'm living in Ireland, but is there any way to get around this?

  • Martin  - Re: Just installed

    John,

    check out this link. It describes what you need to do;

    http://www.milliesoft.co.uk/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=39:setting-up- openvpn&catid=4:tunerfreemce&Itemid=18

    Martin

  • Mark Lopiccola  - Not working so well

    I installed, rebooted and attempted to run it threw WMC. I was able to see the UK television listings, but when I wanted to see the show, it crashed, claiming it was not a valid program.

    Any suggestions? I really liked the programing offered, and look forward to trying a more updated version.

  • Martin  - Re: Not working so well

    I'm sorry it's not working so well for you. I haven't heard of this issue before. I assume you are using version 2.8.1, and have installed the right Vista/Windows 7 version for your machine. If so, try uninstalling and reinstalling.

  • Dave  - Zero Programs in Hulu Categories

    Just a quick note. I'm in Texas, and I have Vista / .NET 3.5. When I install TunerFree MCE, I can download programs from the UK content; however, it tells me there are 0 programs on each of the Hulu categories.

    Is anyone else having this problem? Is there a solution?

  • Martin  - Re: Zero Programs in Hulu Categories

    Dave,

    thanks for the heads up. I have put a note out there for others, and am looking in to it.

    http://www.milliesoft.co.uk/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=59:more-hulu- issues&catid=2:latest-news&Itemid=13

  • Colin  - Some channels work, some dont !

    Ive installed Tuner free several times and get all the tv listings icons, but only a few channels work for me and the channels i cant get makes media center crash when i click on them, do i need to install anything else ? Cant see what im doing wrong, ive got latest flash player and codecs installed, why do some channels work and others do not, please help.

  • Martin  - Re: Some channels work, some dont !

    Hi Colin,

    what channels work and what channels don't work for you? When they don't work, when exactly do you get an error, and what error do you get?

    Martin

  • Colin  - Channels that dont work

    Hi Martin

    I think it would be easier to say what channels work. I get itv 1, itv 2 and channel 4 and radio stations, but when i click on the others i get a invalid application window popping up.

  • Neil D  - Proxy issue through 360 MCE

    Hi Martin,

    First off, excellent application. Thank you for making it.

    Now my issue:

    My proxy settings work fine on W7 and MC so I can watch BBC etc perfectly. However when I try and watch this content on my Xbox 36 acting as an extender it fails the geo check so doesn't use the proxy settings from the W7 machine.

    Do you know a way around this?

    Any help greatly appreciated.

    Cheers,

    Neil

  • mmillmor  - Re: Proxy issue through 360 MCE

    Neil,

    Proxy settings are configured on a user by user basis, and extenders use a different user, so that\'s probably why it isn\'t picked up. You should note though that only wmv and wmp content plays on extenders. Flash does not. The means ITV, BBC Radio, and BBC Downloads only.

    Martin

  • jay

    program s u c k s its a black screen when i watch anything in my media center extender no sound just nothing.

    I guess only the pros can make stuff i will wait for microsoft to create an application.

  • Martin  - Extenders

    Jay,

    yes, there are indeed issues with playing flash content on extenders. Read this if you want to know more about why that is;

    http://blog.milliesoft.co.uk/2009/02/flash-in- windows-media-center/

    As far as I know, Microsoft have no plans to support flash on extenders, so you'll be waiting for a very long time for "the pros" to make it work.

    Martin

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Last Updated on Friday, 20 February 2009 23:11