Hulu.com Review / Preview

If you’ve kept up with the whole NBC vs. Apple battle you’ve probably heard of Hulu.com - the NBC Universal & News Corp venture which aims to provide a YouTube like viral online distribution model while allowing them to still generate ad revenue.

The general opinion of Hulu.com seems to think of it as just another joke of a big corporation completely misunderstanding their audience. Based on what I’ve heard about it, I somewhat shared that opinion.

Well, today I got my private invite to the Hulu so I could try it out myself.

Conclusion?

Hulu.com rocks!

Selection

Hulu.com offers full episodes of a variety of television shows and even some movies. Some shows are current (Heroes, The Office, Scrubs, The Family Guy) and others are older classics (Arrested Development, 24, Firefly, Doogie Howser, The A-Team) and of course, there are many clips from SNL. The selection is somewht scattered with some shows offering only the most recent seasons and others all seasons (24 oddly only offers season 1 and season 6… perhaps there are different rights across seasons?).

The search seems to work decently and browsing is simple enough. Similiar to YouTube there is a Popular section, both for episodes and simply for episode clips. There is also a simple commenting which is unobtrusive for those that don’t care much for it (such as myself - it drives me crazy that half of the YouTube videos I see have comments laced with swearing and/or spamming). The flash based browser is a pain in the butt to browse Saturday Night Live clips, however, as it only shows you 5 episodes/clips at a time (SNL has 404 available).

Advertising

The advertising is the bit that most people seem to complain about the most when hearing about Hulu.com… honestly the ads are unobtrusive enough that it was not a real bother.

Clips:

There is a small video ad following the clip, not required to watch. There also is a 15/20 second ad that I saw about once every 4 or 5 clips, I believe these are based on overall viewing time, not base don the number of viewed clips.

Episodes:

There is a short 6 second “sponsored by” clip preceding playback, then there are short 15-30 second ads every 20ish minutes - much better than live TV and so short they didn’t bother me much at all

Banner Ads:

There is a banner ad at the top of the screen which, frankly, is standard fare for any website and doesn’t even affect anything when you go full screen.

Sharing

One of the other big reasons for Hulu.com is to capture the viral aspect that YouTube has. They were smart to include an easily accessible “embed” link for every episode or every clip. In addition to this is the ability to add a custom clip, just select an episode and Hulu will allow you to select a start and end time to your video embed.

The only part that stinks about the embedding is, like Youtube embedded videos, it does not allow for full-screen, which is one of my big pet peeves. When Hulu.com comes out of beta and goes public with version 1.0, hopefully these embedded links will have a “See this video on Hulu.com” link to allow access to full-screen.

Quality

YouTube video quality is crap. It is insane to me that I have a super high speed connection and yet ever-time some cool video is going around, its been posted to youtube and when I bump it to full-screen to watch, the pixels are bigger than Skittles, it’s ridiculous.

Hulu.com video is much needed and desired improvement. It’s flash video so I’m not 100% sure of the native resolution, but using a quick (and slightly imprecise) pixel counting trick it looks to be roughly 540x340. Not quite standard definition, but close enough to be a pleasant viewing experience.

High Definition

The Hulu Blog has a nice post reflecting their desire to provide HD content via Hulu, even detailing some of the ways they intend to do so.

Thanks to the efficient compression of the H.264 video codec, that day may be coming sooner than anticipated. Today we’re excited to launch an HD Gallery featuring a selection of High Definition video clips at 1280 x 720 resolution. Those of you with a fast internet connection of 2,400 Kbps or higher, the latest build of Adobe Flash Player 9, and a fast computer (check out our system requirements) can stream these High Definition clips and preview the future. We realize the requirements are still fairly hefty, but we know and empathize with those of you who like to stay on the cutting edge and wanted to give you a sneak peek of streaming high definition video.

The current HD Gallery consists of just a couple of shorts and movie trailers, but it is a start and I’m excited for the future potential here.

Downloadable Content

Simple. There is none.

Nada.

Nothing

Nosirree.

Hulu.com is a great online video streaming service, but it does not replace what the iTunes Music Store offered — downloadable video content available at a moments notice (with or without an internet connection) on your computer, iPod, iPhone, or (when combined with an Apple TV or iPod/iPhone AV cable) on your television.

Conclusions

Hulu.com is a huge step forward for online video and for television networks evolving to the new TiVo/Torrent world — viewing media when we want it, not when they supply it. The video quality is a huge improvement and the ability to embed entire episodes (though with small ads) to your blog, myspace, or wherever is a surprising and happily accepted move. It is not a replacement for the iTunes distribution previously had and I hope that a deal with NBC and Apple can be resolved. But that said I highly regard Hulu.com and am considering jerry-rigging up my Mac Mini to the TV so I can watch this great cntent with my wife from the comfort of our couch.

I’ve embedded the pilot episode of Arrested Development as a quick test and to introduce anyone who’s never seen this great show to give it a try. My wife introduced it to me and I absolutely love it… I can now share in the frustration of so many others over its cancellation. Enjoy.