Your favorite shows on the web with hulu

For the past few day I have been watching a lot of TV, but instead of plopping down on the couch, I’ve been watching on my computer. This has all been part of my test of hulu , the first of the free internet TV services that I’m testing out.

I decided that the most important aspects of the test are video quality, show selection, user interface, and commercial interruptions, and so I will grade each service on each of these points.

As for video quality, with my new 22 inch LCD monitor I expected the video to fill my screen and be at a high enough resolution to be able to see details fairly well, and I wasn’t disappointed. In full screen mode the video quality wasn’t much below a standard TV. Pretty good for an over the internet broadcast.

What is having good video quality with nothing to watch? Hulu has a good show selection with a fairly large collection of TV shows and movies provided by NBC and FOX. About half of the shows and movies are full length (as opposed to short YouTube-esq video clips).

Next up is the user interface. Hulu’s interface is very clean-cut, easy to use, and nicely designed. Options for playback and sharing are displayed well and easy to use. You can also share an excerpt of a video by controlling start and end times. Hulu even provides RSS feeds for its videos including series feeds and site wide video feeds so you can keep up with your favorite shows and what’s happening on hulu. Cool idea.

hulu’s video interface

The final aspect of the test is commercial interruptions. Everybody hates commercials and thankfully hulu doesn’t have many interruptions. I watched several episodes of King of the Hill and the only commercial that I was subjected to was a short ten second ad at the beginning of the show. How great is that compared to having to endure three commercials of three minutes each if I were to watch the episode on cable TV?

In my trial run I only found two minor shortcomings with hulu. Yes they’re little things, but they would still be nice features for the end user. The first is that the service only does streaming video. I’m sure that some people would be annoyed that they couldn’t save it to their computer. (I did try to save it with Miro). I only have a problem with this when my buffer can’t keep up and my video is skipping. My only other complaint is that TV episodes will expire after a period of time. Hulu gives you ample time to watch them, but it would still be nice if they stuck around.

Hulu is a great way to watch TV on your PC. The service gives you access to many shows and movies in one location. You can use hulu without an account to watch videos or create an account to use video queuing and community features. Hulu may also see a significant increase in video quality as the developers are experimenting with this. You can see examples here . Hulu did well in my test, and I could certainly see it replacing your cable company in the near future. Give this one a try for sure!

In my next post I will be continuing my TV for free trials by testing out TV from individual network websites. Be sure to check back for my next review.