Mr Muffin tests out Hulu...

Many moons ago, I was chit chatting with a buddy and he mentioned to me that NBC was working on its own YouTube replacement. Being very partial to NBC shows (Seinfeld, the Office, Scrubs, old SNL), I was very excited about this. This project has grown from a just NBC to NBC/Fox, expanding the amount of content that can be available. Yesterday I got my invite to the Hulu beta, and I thought I’d give a few thoughts about it.

First, I do not plan on using this beta too much. With the ongoing WGA strike, and through conversations I’ve had with the Clab, I’m going to support the writers and not use the full potential of hulu, seeing as the networks are making advertising money from each view.

Now, to my thoughts:

First to the shows and guide.

Seeing that you have two networks like NBC and Fox, we also are able to get content from some of their other stations like USA and FX. Keeping in mind that this is still in beta, they have a rather large selection of shows, even though some of them are only a couple of episodes. Navigation through the site to the show you want and then to the episode is a simple and very intuitive process.

Now to the video quality and player.

Seeing as this is the most important part of an internet TV service, I think they’ve done a very good job with the video quality. Shows look rather sharp in the very nicely designed video player. The shows also load rather quick allowing you to watch almost immediately. The only real negative that I could see with it is the graininess that comes about when you go to full screen mode, but that could be something I see them fixing by 1.0 release. The raise/lower lights feature is also a very nice add in which allows you dim the page around your show.

Just a few more thoughts on Hulu. I have no problems with 30 second ads in my shows for a service like this, somehow they have to generate a little money, that is very obvious. It does get a little irritating if they keep with the only one ad per show plan they are currently using. I don’t want to see Hitman, 6 commercials later, I really don’t want to see Hitman. All in all, Hulu is a very well designed service that should be great once they tighten things up and get to a final release. Lets just hope this WGA strike gets over with so there can actually be new content to be added to it.