TV and movie viewing habits are changing. Cable and satellite companies have targeting, and catering to, consumers with high-definition big screen TVs. Now, it’s time to deal with smaller screens. 41% of mobile device users say they watch videos on their phone, according to Business Insider. That’s up from 20% in 2012. Tablet users are beginning to mirror their home TV watching on their devices.

Services like Netflix and Hulu have already made their way into the mobile market. Consumers want choices. They want to be able to watch their favorite shows at home on their HD TVs as well as on their smartphone or tablet. Giving them this seamless capability is the goal of streaming digital services. The arena is competitive and it is heating up.

You Can Take It With You – Hulu is seeing a growth in subscriptions (and their competition with cable companies) by producing their own programs, IT World online reports. Previously just portals to existing TV and movie content, services such as Hulu, Netflix and Amazon are creating their own unique content.

This blurs the distinction between TV and streaming Internet content. But that goes both ways, as cable providers are branching into mobile themselves. According to Cable-tv, cable and satellite providers are also offering mobile content via smartphone apps.

Briefly reviewed on The Verge, DirecTV Voice is a mobile app being released shortly in beta. This app lets the smartphone or tablet user search the DirecTV database for content, schedule it to be recorded, or start it playing either on the mobile device or big screen. Here, they hope, is the seamless content viewing consumers want. A person could start watching CNN on their HD TV at home and takes it with them on their smartphone to the office.

Where To Start – If a person can get cable TV content on their mobile devices and streaming Internet content on their HD TVs, where does one start? A Business Insider review of Netflix and Amazon Instant Video rate them very close in features. Their streaming content is available on iPads, iPhones, Kindles, Blu-Ray players and Smart TVs.

As the consumer use of mobile devices to watch TV shows and movies grows, cable companies will be pushed to deliver more features to compete. A big hurdle for these companies will be price. At $7.99 a month for Netflix and $79 a year for Amazon Prime, which includes streaming content, cable services will need to come up with more value for their $100 plus monthly charge.

Everyone Can Watch What They Want – Imagine mom and dad, son and daughter at home in the evening, all wanting to watch something different at the same time. If you had an HD TV in the living room, family room and in each of the two kids’ rooms, how much will it cost to watch different programs on each screen with the cable TV provider? When decoder boxes are factored in, it can be a ton of money.

Mobile Magazine reports that Netflix is ready to release a four-stream subscription option for $11.99 a month. Add a $25 cable from eBay for everyone to connect their tablet or smartphone to their HD TVs, and the problem is solved, cheaply. This is one area where the streaming Internet providers have flexibility over the cable TV companies.

Cable TV To Go, Please – If a person doesn’t have cable TV, they can go directly to the source. HBO offers all of their program content on their website, HBO Go. Subscribers log in with their account information and watch what they want. They can even watch it on their favorite mobile device.

What if someone shares their account information with other family members or friends? That doesn’t seem to be a problem, according to a Business Insider report on HBO Go. HBO realizes that it’s tough knowing who is really logged into the their service. But they do know that people are watching their programs. One possibility is that once they’ve reached a point of market saturation, they change their policy and offer online subscriptions to those people who can’t do without their programming.

A War Where the Consumer Wins – The competition to win over the consumer with their mobile viewing habits will result in more apps, more options and features, and probably better pricing. People are watching the various players to see what innovations come out of the battle. This is not an area where revamped features will excite consumers. It will be the new, never-before-tried concepts that will draw in the mobile consumers.

If you are one of the many users that aren’t happy with the Netflix price increase, then you may like to know about DVD rental and media streaming alternatives. We found an interesting article written by Ed Rhee over on the cnet.com website, which provides a list of seven Netflix alternatives. The list has been broken down into 2 different sections: DVD rental and media streaming.

First up in the DVD rental section is Redbox, which rents out physical discs via kiosks that are strategically located inside retail stores. Renting a movie is simple: just approach the kiosk, make your selection and then pay for it. Customers even have the option of using the Redbox website or their mobile app to reserve a movie at a specific Redbox kiosk.

Although prices can vary depending on region, the price is generally around $1 plus tax per DVD. Another DVD rental alternative is Greencine, which works similar to Netflix in the fact that their movies are delivered by mail. However, Greencine’s movies cater for a more selective audience than Netflix, with a large selection of foreign, documentary, anime and indie titles.

Greencine’s prices start from $9.95 a month for a one-DVD-out plan. There is also the option of your local public library, as many do hire out DVDs for a week at a time now. If however you are looking for a media-streaming alternative, then you could always give Hulu Plus a try. The Hulu Plus service enables users to watch full TV episodes, as well as a selection of movies.

The Hulu Plus subscription will cost you $7.99 a month. Another media streaming alternative is HBO Go, which is currently available through U-verse, AT&T, Charter (beta), DIRECTV, Cox Communications (beta), Dish Network, Verizon FiOS, Suddenlink and Xfinity. Users will have access to HBO licensed movies, as well as original shows such as Entourage and True Blood.

If that doesn’t appeal to you, then maybe you’ll like Amazon Instant Video. The Amazon instant Video service features a wide selection of movies and TV shows to rent on a per-title basis. TV episodes cost $1.99, while the latest movie releases are $3.99. The final media-streaming alternative is Comcast Xfinity TV, which provides Comcast users with access to movies and TV shows.

You can read more about the aforementioned services via the cnet.com website. Are you a current Netflix user? If so, will you be cancelling and going elsewhere?

The app’s officially description tells us that Hulu Plus for Android currently supports the HTC Inspire 4G, Motorola Atrix, Motorola Droid II, Motorola Droid X, Nexus One and Nexus S, as you can see there is not a lot of love for HTC’s long-list of offerings just yet, also there are no Sony Ericsson models supported yet either. The good news is that more devices will be supported throughout the year, therefore we will have to keep you posted as we hear updates on the matter.

Hulu Plus for Android is free to download, however to take advantage of the service you must agree a Hulu Plus subscription which costs $7.99 per month (with no commitment necessary), this will give you access to tons of TV programs and movies. Popular offerings currently include this season’s Family Guy, Glee, The Office and Grey’s Anatomy, if you are a fan of classic shows you will be glad to hear that yoy can watch episodes of Miami Vice, Desperate Housewives, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X Files and much more, there are also hundreds of movies available to watch from the Miramax and the Criterion collections.

As you would expect the app has been developed to offer a great user experience and has all of the functionality that you would expect, this includes searching, browsing and you can also manage your queue, also if you use Hulu Plus on other devices you will be able to seamlessly resume playback on these devices from where you left off on your Android device. Something which we also have to mention is that you will be able to watch videos via 3G, 4G and WiFi connections.

If you have used Hulu Plus on your Android device we would love to hear from you, therefore feel free to share your thoughts on the app / service in the comments section below. Do you think Hulu Plus is worth $7.99 per month? We think that pricing seems fair. If you would like to find out more about Hulu Plus for Android you can read the app’s full description, view screenshots and even read user reviews over at the Android Market.

Will you subscribe to Hulu Plus for Android?

This is a huge number, as it adds up to 5.662 billion viewing sessions for just that one month. This is one reason why we have seen an uptake in the amount of advertising seen before or during a video. The true king of both these services was YouTube, which beat of the likes of VEVO, Yahoo, Facebook and Viacom Digital.

Over the years there have been a number of online video services launched to compete with YouTube, and although they are good and offer an easier service, there seems to be no beating them at the moment. We have to wonder why no one is able to come close, maybe because they have the backing of Google?

Rapid TV News has been looking at the Video Metrix and found that on average users of Google’s video service managed 311 minutes per viewer, but Hulu was not that far behind with 217.8 minutes – not bad when you consider the former has a greater reach.

Now some of you may wonder how people can spend so long watching these videos, I for one am one of them. From time to time I will go on YouTube to search for a funny clip or two, but do not spend all of my spare time looking for hot searches etc. One has to wonder where these people find the time to do this – maybe your neighbor is one of them, and has been the one slowing your Internet connection down?

YouTube has had a two-year headstart on Hulu, with the former being founded in 2005 and the latter in 2007. However, the two are very different in business models. YouTube is a free online video-sharing service, whereas Hulu is a paid over the top subscription service offering content from movie studios.

We expect both services to expand in the coming years, especially as the likes of Samsung Smart TV and other connected TVs include the likes of YouTube and other online video services. How many hours would you say you spend on any of the above?

Christina Warren from Mashable says that Netflix are not worried about paying the price either, with suggestions that they will pay up to $100,000 per episode of new TV episodes. Having first-run content will be a huge deal to the online-streaming service, and will not doubt help take the fight to the ever-popular Hulu Plus service, which was recently reduced in price.

Netflix currently has no competition when it comes to movie streaming, but we all know that Hulu Plus and other services are giving them something to think about when it comes to streaming TV show content. This latest move shows that Netflix are not afraid to pay the price to become the number one in both areas of online streaming content.

For some time now Netfilx has been a season behind first-run TV show content, this is something that Hulu Plus has been able to take advantage of. However, we have to wonder what affects this latest news will have on the Hula service, as we know that Netflix has a bigger reach, and offering this new content could be a big draw for current Hulu subscribers as well?

It was speculated back in October that there would indeed be a price cut from Hulu, when Peter Kafka said the ABC/NBC/FOX-owned service would drop its price to $4.95, which almost seemed to good to be true.

Unfortunatly, the price did not dip that low but Hulu are giving some nice gestures along with this price drop. If you have already subscribed to the service at its previous preview price, Hulu say that they will cover the cost with a refund of the difference in your next billing cycle.

If you have not yet subscribed, but are thinking about doing so, you can take advantage of the one week free trial that they are offering too.

Oh, and one more upbeat byte of information; Roku’s hardware is now supported with Hulu Plus which means that this is currently one of, if not the best service of its kind out there at the moment.

The full press release can be read by visiting the source below.

Will you be subscribing to Hulu Plus with the price cut? What about the Roku hardware, are you glad that it is now implemented?

Source: Engadget

The deal is thought to be a subscription-based affair, meaning that it could well arrive as a premium feature for those of you willing to try out Playstation Plus. We have to say that the addition of Hulu on PS+ would definitely be a major incentive to forking out the cash per year.

As for the article from Bloomberg, they add that a deal could be announced as soon as next week, with Hulu features coming to the PS3 via a future PS3 firmware update – v4.00 anyone?

What are your thoughts on this? Would you be willing to pay for Hulu on the PS3 or not? Hopefully it will come free for Playstation Plus annual subscribers, rather than a separate fee on top.

We’ll keep you updated on this.

Both are already in partnership with Netflix, with Microsoft having it already rolled out on it’s Xbox 360 platform, and Apple to follow suit very soon.

Continuing from a previous article , we will state the more important factor here — the subscription cost. According to a report from Reuters, Hulu are set to offer new episodes of “Glee” for free, among other programmes, but older content and shows will require you to sign up for the paid membership.

With movies also on the horizon, it will be interesting to see what Hulu do with this service, as cable companies who already offer some of the content for free, will wonder exactly where Hulu are going with this service.

Would you justify paying an extra $10 for a service you already receive with your current subscription packages with your cable or television company?

Source: PC World

According to a report from GearLive, the Hulu service has been spotted in internal Xbox 360 dashboard builds and Microsoft has the popular service ready for a full unveil at E3 in a few weeks time.

GearLive have apparently received their information from a trusted source who says that the service will operate in a similar way to Netflix on the Xbox 360 dashboard.

Also confirmed is a subscription-based format – although prices are obviously unknown yet. Hulu is undoubtedly one of the most popular net-based services out there at the moment – so how much would you be willing to pay for it?

Would you prefer a pay-per-file system, or a monthly or yearly fee for unlimited access? Let us know your thoughts on this. We’ll update you when we know more.