I heard about Hulu around the time it launched back in October, but it was and still is in private beta.  Unlike a Google beta the few lucky people with access don’t have any invitations to send out so I’ve had to patiently wait while reading countless reviews about how great it is.  A couple of days ago I left a comment on a story about Hulu at GigaOm,  basically saying it sounds great but when will we actually be able to see for ourselves.  Well I don’t know if it was coincidence or if I owe someone a huge thanks, but less than 24 hours later I had my private beta access.

What is Hulu?

Well in their own words:

Hulu’s ambitious and never-ending mission is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premium content when, where and how you want it. We hope to provide you with the web’s most comprehensive selection of premium programming across all genres and formats – television shows, feature films, clips, and more. Additionally, we want to give you more choices of when and where you can enjoy your favorite programming, while creating innovative experiences that let you watch and participate in online video in new and exciting ways.

To me it’s a one stop shop with all my favorite shows and one familiar interface.  Instead of going to NBC to watch the latest episode of Chuck, then over to Fox to catch up on Family Guy, etc. I can go to Hulu and watch it all.

What Content Exactly?

Bravo, E!, Fox, Fox Classics, Fox Reality, 20th Century Fox Television, FuelTV, FX, IGN, NBC, NBC Universal Digital Studios, Oxygen, SciFi, Style, Sundance, TVG, Universal (Movies) and USA.  For the most part it’s TV shows, but there are a few movies like The Jerk and The Blues Brothers.

What’s cool is they don’t just have current shows, they have old shows that haven’t been on the air in years, like Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, Doogie Howser and even The A-Team!  But where they really win me over is they cover most of my favorite shows (Chuck, Family Guy, The Office, House, Monk, Psych) with their current content and I’m sure their library will only grow as time goes on.

What About The Quality?

Let me try to paint this picture for you.  My TV downstairs was the cheapest 25″ that Walmart carried in 1999 which means it has 1 coaxial input and that’s it.  My VCR was a free gift after buying $100 in groceries at Kroger in 1995 (nope, I’m not making this up).  Luckily my computer was built in this century and has an S-video out jack.  So I have an S-video->Component Video cable running from the computer to the VCR.  I have an audio cable running from my computer to a piece that converts 2 RCA jacks into 1 RCA jack which then goes to the VCR.  The VCR is connected to the TV via coax of course.  With ancient equipment and cables running everywhere I was able to watch an episode of Family Guy on my TV and it looked exactly like it would if I was watching it on Fox.

So I’ve proved it works on a smaller, ancient TV, but what about modern equipment?  I took my laptop upstairs to test it on the 42″ Plasma HDTV.  Running the cables was obviously much easier and the quality was just as good.  Up to this point everything I had done was done over a 802.11g wireless network and without any lag.  I actually watched the latest episode of Chuck on NBC’s site earlier this week so I had something to accurately compare and it actually worked better on Hulu.  The quality was about the same, but the loading speed and the options were better than on NBC’s site.

The big test was the new HD content that Hulu recently announced.  For that I needed to plug directly into my cable connection via ethernet as the wireless would not load it fast enough.  They actually list some pretty lofty requirements for the HD on the site, but I did not have all of them (I had a 1.8Ghz processor where they “required” a 3Ghz) and it seemed to work just fine.  Right now they have 9 movie trailers in HD, but they’re great for testing the quality of this new streaming HD that uses the latest version of Adobe Flash.  The result - phenomenal.  On my laptop screen, my 19″ LCD, my roommate’s 20″ LCD and the 42″ plasma the picture was unbelievable.  I was worried maybe blowing it up to fit the 42″ screen would cause some loss in quality, but it sure didn’t appear to lose anything to me.

What Else Does Hulu Do?

Other than combining content from multiple networks/studios in one place, there are some other nice features that can convince you to use Hulu rather than other content providers.  The interface is very nice allowing quick access to embed the clip on a site, send a link to a friend, get details about what you’re watching, provide feedback if there’s some kind of problem with the clip, switch to full-screen mode, pop out the clip into a separate window, dim everything on the screen except the clip or rate it one scale of 1 to 5 stars.  All of that is around the video viewing area.  Below that you get details on when that show airs (if it’s a current running show), information about the clip, related clips, access to reviews written by other users and the option to write your own review.

There’s also a profile screen where you can set your own avatar, create playlists and look at a history of shows you’ve watched.  To create a playlist you click on the “+ playlist” link when browsing content.

What’s The Catch?

Well as with any content that doesn’t cost anything there are going to be advertisements involved.  On Hulu these are presented in a couple of ways.  When you start playing a clip that has ads in it you will hear an announcement that it’s being brought to you with limited commericals by ______.  Then depending on the length you will see a 30-second ad for that company a few times (usually 3 times for a 30 minute show) during it and those cannot be skipped.

Last night I found a bunch of SNL shorts, most 2-3 minutes in length, and added them to my playlist.  I told it to play all of them and away it went.  In between each clip I got a very small window with a commercial.  The window stayed up there for 30 seconds, but most of the commercials lasted about 20 seconds.  I don’t mind watching commercials in exchange for free content, but there’s no sense in 10 seconds of dead air.  If the commercial is done move on to the next clip.

What Does Hulu NOT Do?

I’m a very cynical, devils-advocate type of person, but there’s not much I can really say is missing.  In my brief use so far I’ve thought of a few added features that would be nice, but none of them are really things I was expecting and couldn’t believe they weren’t there.  Just enhancements that would be nice.

• In the video playback window there is a timeline bar and a play/pause button, along with dots indicating when commercials will play (and no you can’t just skip past them).  It would be nice if there was a button that would take you back to the beginning of the clip as it’s hard to get to the exact beginning by just clicking on the timeline bar.
•  To add something to the playlist you have to be browsing the content.  It would be nice if the + playlist option was added to the actual content as well.  So if I started playing an episode of The Simpsons and then decided I wanted to finish it later I could add it to my playlist right from that screen instead of having to browse for it again.
• This is not something I care about so much as something advertisers might care about.  It seems to repeat the same commercials within a clip.  So if I’m watcing Family Guy and there are 3 commercials, it’s the same 3 each time.  I understand having 1 show sponsored by only 1 advertiser, but at least show some different ads for them.  If I have to watch ads I want to at least have a chance of it being something that interests me.  I can decide that after the first one so the other 2 repeats aren’t going to change my mind either way.  Also, as I mentioned above there is a dead-air issue with the commercials that play when you’re playing the items on your playlist.
• The given with any new service is to add more content.  Again, it’s not a complaint as I’m very impressed with how much is already there just in the beta and I hope to see that list continue to grow.  I’m most looking forward to the list of HD content moving beyond just movie trailers.

So overall I am more impressed with Hulu than I expected to be and happy to finally be writing a first-hand review of it instead of reading other reviews and wondering when it will be my turn!  A few people have compared this to YouTube and wondered how they will compete, which baffles me.  The idea behind Hulu and the content it provides is completely different and unless they start allowing users to submit grainy, crappy content like YouTube (please, please, please don’t ruin Hulu like that) then there really is no competition from either standpoint because they’re providing two different services.  If I want to see a video of a 12 year old singing worse than Sanjaya that was recorded on a camera phone or the Gem Sweater Lady, then I’ll go to YouTube.  If I want to see my favorite shows in stunning quality, I’ll go to Hulu.