Nels Wadycki » The New Web

Ong Bak 2: Available Now on VOD

Nels — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:32:51 +0000

But the interesting part is that it’s not out in theaters until October 23rd (that’s 23 days from the time of this writing).

The whole “available now on VOD, Xbox Live, and Amazon” part seems a stark contrast to the “in theaters October 23rd” part, and while I applaud the effort/ingenuity, I have to wonder what research led to the decision. I’m sure there is a market for people who are going to buy a movie, but aren’t going to go see it in theaters.

Ah… now I see: Ong Bak 2 (Pre-Theatrical Rental)

The key is obviously “Pre-Theatrical Rental” because the cost of that rental (at least on Amazon) is $9.99. That’s fairly comparable to seeing the movie in the theater (though if you have VOD or Xbox Live, or a computer hooked up to a TV through which you can play the Amazon rental) then you can get several admissions for the price of entry. So I still have to wonder, are they going to make more money off of people renting this from home than they are from people going to the theater (or going to the theater and subsequently buying the movie)? In this case I’m less skeptical simply because of the movie. It seems like a fanboy kind of movie that people will actually want to see as soon as they can. And I can imagine people watching this in a dorm room on someone’s oversize computer screen, versus, say Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs or Fame.

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Hulu What Now?

Nels — Thu, 14 May 2009 23:11:04 +0000

So, I know the thing on everyone’s mind is the whole Twitter Replies scandal, but really, that’s already been overdone, and it’ll be over and gone in a day anyway. But it does sort of relate to to this post in the whole K.I.S.S. #FAIL way… you see…

Not too long ago, I was watching the “Web Exclusives” (aka Deleted and Behind-The Scenes) of The Office on Hulu and I see this:

Availability Notes:
The last 14 episodes of Season 5 are available until August 8, 2009. At that time, Season 5 episodes will revert to a ‘five rolling’ schedule with five episodes available at a given time and a newer episode added weekly as an older one expires.

I’m sorry… whosinawhatnow? That Don’t Make No Sense.

As opposed to the Twitter reply scheme, which I actually understood the first time I read it and – while kind of dumb – is actually comprehensible…

Maybe it’s just the date thing that’s throwing me off. I’m assuming that new episodes don’t start until some time in September, and so the August 8th date seems sort of arbitrary. Why not August 29th, 1997 at 2:14 am?

Here I thought Hulu was going to neatly take care of the fact that I don’t have cable or a satellite dish or AT&T’s Uverse (whatever that is). But instead of being my online TiVo, it appears they’re going to be all Big Media about it and force me to watch on their schedule (at least somewhat). Maybe if, instead of “limited commercials” they went to 2 commercials per break… or 3, or even 4, like on broadcast TV? Would the users revolt? Sure… but would they get used to it if they didn’t have any other choice? I know I would.

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Big and Small Changes at Hulu

Nels — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:54:09 +0000

The Big Story is obviously that Disney has bought into Hulu meaning that by the time I get around to watching this season of LOST, it may be on Hulu! (ABC’s streaming video player is very good, but I am really hoping to one day have all the TV shows I want to watch on one queue)

But a smaller change that I’d like to mention just to point out how awesome Hulu is: You now have to click a link that says “View Description” to see the description of the episode. Usually when it comes to UI, extra clicks are something you want to avoid, but with this change, the plot of the episode isn’t given away, which, for most shows, I believe, makes for a better end user experience. And it’s those little details that really tell me that Hulu is being led in the right direction.

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Mcrblggng Vds

Nels — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:36:14 +0000

Mzng hw y cn ndrstnd ths wth n vwls rght?

Anyway, haven’t posted in 10 days, so what better way to rectify that than by posting videos?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

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Advertising Options on Hulu

Nels — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:31:24 +0000

So I went to catch up on some TVonTheInternet earlier this week and was offered the option of either watching a long ad and then the show straight through with no ads, or to watch with shorter ads interspersed as usual.

Of course I went with the long ad at the beginning. I think I saved myself 30 seconds that way, and it worked just as advertised. Pun intended. If that’s even a pun.

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Installing Silverlight on Firefox

Nels — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:08:54 +0000

I was thinking about Live Blogging this or something, but it’s not like anyone is going to read it in real time. So, I’ll just write my experience here.

By the way, I am really only installing Silverlight because NBA.com wants me to. I can’t watch their Windows Media videos in Firefox, so I’m hoping that if I install Silverlight and am able to watch those videos, the NBA web admins will see their numbers go up and start putting everything in Silverlight. Then I’ll be able to watch it all in Firefox and not have to go to IE anymore. That’ll be the day.

So far, I’ve downloaded the executable and that’s it… Note: I’ve got 8 tabs open right now, so if this requires a browser restart, it could be a problem. Moreso if it’s an auto-browser-restart (which I can see Microsoft wanting to do).

Letting it through the firewall…

And I will have to restart my browser for these setting to take effect… but I get to do it when I want. So, I’ll use my secret “crash Firefox” session saving technique (in which I end the Firefox process from the Task Manager, thereby saving my tabs).

Back in a sec…

Okay! NBA.com says it’s successfully installed, and it looks like the video is there. Playback time!

Overall, not too bad. A little bit of skipping along the way, but that happens… Rewind was not so kind. Clicking on the playback bar results in the video stalling while the audio rewound and then played. If I used the scrub bar, then it worked okay after about a second. I’ll take that over Windows “Buffering” Media Player, any day, though.