Why is there no Netflix and Hulu support in XBMC as of yet?

So I've spent the afternoon trying to fund out how to enable native support for Netflix, Hulu, various streaming services, etc on XBMC Live. But it really appears that this is either difficult, or not possible. But why? With XBMC installed on a full-fledged PC, and Netflix and the like are all web-based applications why in the word is this so difficult? I can do it on MS Media Center, which I found so painfully clumsy that I took the system out of my setup. I thought a nice little Revo with XBMC Live would be far more capable and more streamlined. But such a simple task, Netflix. Why ever not?

Netflix requires silverlight -> no go on linux either way.

Hulu requires RTMPE, plus a javascript engine to unwrap all the obfuscation they throw in the path of actually obtaining the URLs -> not all that easy unless you're actually a browser. The RTMPE side of it is easy enough I suspect, though Adobe will probably not be terribly impressed, given their sue-happy nature with others that have tried that route.

I agree that using something like webkit or chrome is the only way to go long-term, though it's incredibly clunky for what in the end is a just a wrapped h264 stream. It'd be nice to just have the stream to play - that's all people want, after all. Instead they wrap it up in obfuscation (DRM, but they give you the key) so that you are forced to use their crappy players with no HW acceleration etc.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Well, thanks for the incredibly informative and comprehensible response. At the moment I have my Tivo HD, which can do Netflix just fine. But I eventually want tog et rid of cable, so the Tivo would be a pretty expensive way to stream Netflix if that were its sole purpose.

You mentioned that both of these (Netflix and Hulu) are a no-go in Linux. What, then, about Windows? If I am running the Windows version of XBMC, shouldn't these things be possible? Granted, I lose the HW acceleration of the Ion shoudl I leave Linux behind, which means that I would want to reconsider my hardware choices. So, I guess I have two questions that remain;

1. Does running a Windows version of XBMC give me more options?; and
2. Would steping up to the Atom 330 in the Revo 3610 give me the power I need to run XBMC in a windows environment and acheive 1080p?
   

Ultimately, the problem is that I killed the Media Center HTPC because it was so clumsy. I really want something to boot to nice, clean interface. Perhaps under the circumstances I would be better off saving my money and getting an Asus O!Play and forgetting about Netflix for now? I mean, there's always the 360 for that, though I really would like to have everything in the same box...

1: no, there are no more options in windows
2: no, not until GPU accelerated encoding is avaible in windows.

I don't even have a Windows machine (100% Linux household, thankyouverymuch), and I can use Hulu quite easily. I simply power off XBMC and start the browser (irexec command). Then I turn on the wireless mouse and use it - all from my couch.

And that's precisely my point, crackers. If I can do Hulu from a browser window on my Ubuntu laptop, why not XBMC? Netflix I understand. But Hulu seems like a no-brainer.

Netflix and Hula are both very possible. http://www.playon.tv has got both for Windows.

I'm not sure about Linux but for windows it has both.

Right. And I had a nice Netflix plugin for my Windows Media Center. So why no XBMC integration? Again, I understand the Netflix player is Windows and Mac only, so I can see that not working on a Linux-based build of XBMC. But what about Hulu on a Lunix flavor? And why not both on the Windows version?

dude Jonathan already explained to you, in nice technical detail, "why no Hulu". Why are you still asking this same question? You will need to either not use Hulu for your television needs or not use XBMC for Hulu. I personally don't use Hulu since I don't like looking at advertising and I have an automated torrent setup that gets me more shows than I can actually watch, plus I don't have to worry about Comcast deciding to turn off 3rd party access or just generally being assholes (something Comcast generally has a reputation for doing).

And I thanked him for that detail, Sleepy. Your addition of a snarky, elitist follow-up, indicating that you don't care because you download all of your content illegally adds nothing at all to the conversation. Although I did enjoy reading it imagining it spoken in a classic, Comic Book Guy voice. Thanks!

Jonathan, you indicated that Hulu was difficult for anything other than a browser. Couldn't XBMC simply launch a skinned browser? I'm simply looking to be able to do everything within one app.