Hulu.com: TV on the web

Posted by Andy Atkinson on March 11, 2008

Hulu.com logo Hulu.com is the latest product that offers video content over the web. Hulu is poised to make a bigger market impact than competitors because they've eliminated some of the bottlenecks associated with premium content on the web. The service opens to the public March 12, 2008. I've been enjoying Hulu for a while, via their private beta program, and wanted to share my experiences.

In the past, Pain in the Tech has reviewed Miro (which was called Democracy at the time) and Joost (the team that build Skype), both were excellent services, but presented some roadblocks that Hulu has eliminated.

Hulu got these things right

  1. No application download required. Episodes and clips are played in your browser with a Flash plugin. Flash has very high market penetration according to Adobe, a good choice for modern application user interfaces, and is known to scale better than other technologies (YouTube for example).
  2. Content does not need to be downloaded, it can be streamed immediately. I stopped using Miro shortly after reviewing it because I would forget to download shows in advance. Miro did have subscription services to automatically download content, but streaming is an even better choice when Internet connection speed and client machine speed are sufficient. HD content can require gigabytes of storage space that users don't need to have, thanks to Hulu.
  3. Hulu offers HD versions of content when available. In my experience I get the highest quality version of content when it is available, I don't need to determine whether I'm watching the HD or SD (standard definition) version of something. For example, episodes of House have been in HD.
  4. Big television content is available at launch. Sure, clips from shows are available on YouTube/Google video (at a lower quality), but Hulu has partnered with the big studios from the beginning, to avoid legal fair-use issues, and offer content in the original presentation format (except for the commercials), not a re-encoded hacked up, shortened version of the original.
  5. Cross-platform. The Flash browser plug-in works on Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Content

Hulu is a partnership between big television studios. From their Product Tour page:

Hulu offers current primetime shows like The Office, Prison Break, Bionic Woman, House and Bones, and episodes from TV classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Miami Vice, Arrested Development and more. We've also partnered with premier content owners like E! Entertainment, FUEL TV and SciFi Network and USA Networks to add to our growing collection of premium programming.

Hulu content preview

More advantages of Hulu

  1. Commercial interruptions are short, usually around 30 seconds. There is a scrub bar at the bottom of the screen during commercials, showing the remaining time. In practice, Hulu commercials have been less intrusive than regular commercials due to the scrub bar, though I've only ever seen commercials from a single company, which can get tiring.
  2. Most popular broadcast television shows have full length episodes available. Some shows like "Scrubs" have only 2-3 minute clips available unfortunately. More interesting "Clips" content I've seen are Superbowl ads or SNL sketches, short clips by design, as opposed to teasers or highlights from a 30-minute episode.
  3. Like Pandora.com, an excellent web music service that also uses a Flash interface, the Hulu player starts in the browser almost immediately, and content starts streaming within a couple seconds. Some television shows are presented in a horizontal sliding bar with a big "Watch Now" button that would be difficult to miss. This nearly non-existent startup time makes the overall user experience better. Users can can move very easily between web browsing and television watching. Contrast that experience, especially for non-technical computer users, with launching an application, especially one that takes a lot of memory to run, locating content, and starting playback.

What do you need?

  1. Fast Internet connection, especially for HD content. Hulu HD content requires a reliable 2.5MB Internet connection and Flash Player 9.
  2. Fairly modern PC, with a minimum 3Ghz processor, or even better, dual-core. Hulu publishes minimum System Requirements for HD here.

What other features does Hulu have?

  1. User Profiles, Playlists, sharing content to websites or by email.
  2. Fullscreen Flash player, with neat extras like "Dim the lights." These are self-explanatory.
  3. Other content types: clips and full-length movies. Full length movies are available according to the Product Tour, though I haven't been able to watch any in time for this review.
  4. Good website design! The site has a lot of whitespace, a clean design in general, and offers a good search, and feeds. Hulu has gotten those basics right which is not always the case with traditional big media companies. For the public launch, the website may change.
  5. Portions of clips can be selected for sharing, either by email or posted to a website. This is neat and easy to do. See screenshot below.

Hulu scrub bar editing clip

Hulu offers the easiest way yet to watch television shows, popular clips, and other video content over the web. HD looks great, and on a modern computer, works very well. I keep reminding myself this is coming in over the web. Hulu faces some of the same mass-market adoption challenges that all web video content distributors face, if they really want to capture a large market share. For example, Apple offering YouTube access through the iPhone and the AppleTV helps non-technical users access content they may not have otherwise. If Hulu becomes very popular, look for native applications on devices like the iPhone, to help make their content even more accessible.

For early adopters, television junkies, or casual viewers looking for an alternative way to get video content, Hulu offers the easiest and best overall experience to date.

UPDATE: After the public launch of Hulu, feature-lengh films are featured more prominently. Large selection at launch, very useful, would be interested to learn partnership details with movie companies that allow Hulu to legally make movies available on-demand. Quite an interesting benefit for consumers that might have otherwise rented or purchased a movie that is now available free over the web.

More reading

About the author(s)

Andy started Pain in the Tech in 2005 as a way to share tips and tutorials with friends and family, and evangelize great products and services. By 2008, Pain in the Tech had 7 contributors, thousands of daily page views. Site ownership was transitioned to Matt Thommes in 2008.

Comments

# egor flagg at 6/15/2009 3:12 am cst

Very very nice to have a alternative source for video. the big three have control and I don't like that. have 2.3 ghz processor nvidia 6200 and works fine (s-video) on my plasma @ 480. looking for faster processor going to unsubscribe fron directv. I have to pay to watch commercials. I would pay for hulu when it happens..... Love the service.. keep it up, there's a market catching on....the big three know it !!!

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