First Look: How Disney Pulled Off Integration of Disney+ and Hulu onto Single App

Disney+ and Hulu combine for over 70,000 pieces of unique content. The companies brought much of those two libraries together this week, when it launched the public beta test of its one-app experience combining Disney+ and Hulu, but according to one Disney executive the process is much more involved than people may think.

• Disney’s chief technology officer Aaron LaBerge is revealing new details about the creation of the Disney-Hulu one-app experience.
• More features, such as fully fleshed-out content hubs are coming to the experience.
• Check out The Streamable’s first impressions of Hulu on Disney+ below.

Why Doesn’t Disney+ on Hulu Have Everything?

Speaking with Fast Company, Disney’s chief technology officer Aaron LaBerge explained that a series of licensing agreements Disney has in place with providers will keep some content exclusive to the standalone Hulu app. These shows and movies simply aren’t allowed to stream on Disney+, so they have to be kept separate.

LaBerge also gave some details about the technical challenge Disney engineers faced when bringing Disney+ and Hulu together.

“The content libraries between Hulu and Disney Plus—over 70,000 pieces of content—were encoded differently,” he explained to Fast Company. “The playback output had different specifications. The metadata attached to each of those assets was different.

“In Hulu, a video asset has five pieces of art that describe the content,” he continued. “It’s the cover art, the poster art, small thumbnail, large thumbnail, etc. In Disney Plus, there are 27 pieces of art attached, which allows you to do a bunch of different creative things.”

That’s one small example, but it does indeed go to show that there are a huge amount of challenges in executing a maneuver as seemingly simple as merging two streaming apps into one. It also explains why the launch is still a beta test; Disney will further build out the experience for the official launch of the product in March, incorporating dedicated content hubs, though it may hold off on allowing people to link their profiles on the two services.

There’s no way for us to physically link two different profiles and their interactions without sending the user through some sort of wizard where we’ve got to be like, ‘Is this you, or is this you?’” Jason Wong, Disney Entertainment & ESPN Technology’s senior VP of product management said. “And we’re not looking to do that at this time.”

First Impressions of New Hulu/Disney+ Experience

It was hard not to be curious about the new Disney+/Hulu one-app experience, after so many months of anticipation. Thus far, the addition is fairly straightforward, and pretty easy for users of Disney+ to get comfortable with.

The layout and design is exactly the same as a standard Disney+ page, and puts popular titles like “The Bear” and “Only Murders in the Building” right up top. The content rows that follow as you scroll down are all logically emplaced; new arrivals, followed by Hulu Originals and popular animated content for adults.

Much like on Hulu’s own interface, the Hulu tile in Disney+ includes a row for users to browse different brands offered by the service. Content from ABC, FX, Lifetime and more can be accessed and curated at the click of a button, which makes it easy to track down something new to watch from your favorite content providers.

The best news for parents is that Disney+ launched updated parental controls in March, so it won’t be difficult to ensure your kids don’t see content that’s too mature for them when enjoying Hulu on Disney+. While the new Hulu hub on Disney+ isn’t perfect (where’s the live TV streaming ability?), it’s an excellent start, and a great way for Disney to reduce the friction between its two entertainment streaming services.