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Hulu Launches New Player, Spurns HTML5 in Favor of Flash

by Caleb Johnson on May 14, 2010 at 06:30 AM

Hulu Spurns HTML5
While HTML5 might be the the future of the Web, Hulu says it isn't ready to climb aboard just yet. Business Insider reports that Hulu announced (and later removed its blog post [Ed. Note. and now reposted it]) that it is sticking exclusively with Adobe's Flash Player to play its content. That's bad news for iPad and iPhone users who hoped HTML5 would finally allow them to watch the ad-supported video service on their mobile devices, none of which currently support Flash.

So why deny the people? In the blog post, Eugene Wei, Hulu's Vice President of Product, wrote that it's a matter of serving all customers to the best of the company's ability. "We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn't yet meet all of our customers' needs," Wei wrote. He claims, among other things, that HTML5 isn't ready to secure the site's content, adequately report to its advertisers or even provide the best quality video possible. Yet again, our hopes for all day '30 Rock' marathons on the iPad have been shattered.

Update: As part of yesterday's update, Hulu also announced -- with the aid of a 'Voltron' metaphor -- a brand new video player. Looking past convergences and synergies, the larger player should cut down on video playback issues because of connection slowdowns. Interestingly, Hulu is introducing a normalized audio feature, which means the volume of interstitial ads won't suddenly peak as you go to a commercial break. [From: Hulu, via: Business Insider]

Tags: adobe, browser, eugene wei, EugeneWei, flash, html5, hulu, ipad, mobile, mobile video, MobileVideo, new hulu player, NewHuluPlayer, online video, OnlineVideo, plugin, streaming video, StreamingVideo, top, tv, video, Web

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