• December 10th, 2007
• Joseph Crawford
• 1:35 AM (GMT-5)
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A while back I signed up for a private beta of the website Hulu.com.  Tonight I finally got the invitation e-mail with my login information.  I never have time anymore to sit down and watch my TV Shows.  I am always using my computer to watch DVD’s or movies purchased from the iTunes store.  So when I miss an episode I always had to find a way to download it and watch it.  I have a 23" Apple wide screen display so it is nice to watch movies/tv on.  The only problem I have found with some streaming sites like Netflix is that the quality is not that great when you are in full screen mode.  With Hulu.com however full screen is actually really good quality.

At Hulu, you’ll find a vast selection of premium programming across all genres and content types including hit shows, movies, clips and more.

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, SciFi Network and USA Networks to add to our growing collection of premium programming.

I love the fact that now there is a way to legally watch the shows that I miss on TV.  I am not sure how long they have to wait in order to post it on their website but I am sure it is something like 8 days.  I say 8 days because most of the network sites wait that long before they post them on their video players.

Now why use Hulu.com if you can watch the TV shows on the network sites anyway?  Well I would rather use one site than have to visit 10 different network sites to watch my shows.  I cannot wait to see how well this website does.  I just hope they have the allotted bandwidth this is going to take.  Right now things seem fast and really good quality but when they bring this out of beta I do wonder how the quality will be.  Also Hulu.com also offers one feature that I love.  Take a look at the video below, this is a FULL episode of House M.D.  You also do not have to embed an entire episode, they have a way for you to just select a clip and embed just that.  So if there was something funny on a show you want to share, you can embed that 2 minute clip.

Being able to Embed the video into your own site is cool and I guarantee there will be sites stemming from this that will use an API in the future. I see Hulu.com being like Template Monster, they run the official site but allow other sites to republish the content for their site.

If you have checked out Hulu.com you will see that the videos that you find embedded into a website like the one above are lacking some features that you can use on Hulu.com.  For instance you cannot view full screen on an embedded video.  At Hulu.com you can also choose to pop the player into it’s own window so that you can move it anywhere on your screen, resize it to your content.  They even have a feature called  Lower the Lights which dims everything in the browser window except the video so that nothing can take your focus away.

Every so often during an episode there is a short commercial just like on TV or the network sites.  However there are far fewer commercials than when the episodes are on TV.  I can deal with the short commercials but I hate where there is a 5 minute pause for 4 commercials 4 times during a show.