Hulu Online Video Service Review Discussion

By Jay Garmon

Hulu is the banner-carrier for legally watching television for free on the Internet, but some have argued you get what you pay for. Is Hulu really ready to change TV forever, or is it still not ready for prime time? We break it down in this review.

Read the full content of this Article: Hulu Online Video Service Review

Related Articles:

• Holiday Software Buyers Guide 2009
• Amazon Video On Demand Review
• Netflix Watch Instantly Streaming Video Review

 

U.S. only :X

 

I think you get a lot for free. In fact, you get so much for free that the relatively few (and very short!) commercials do not generate enough revenue to make Hulu profitable. My understanding is most experts believe Hulu will become a for-pay service in the foreseeable future.

 

Sounds like they just haven't signed up enough advertisers yet. I recall reading somewhere that they get paid a lot more per ad than broadcast TV commercial views. Kinda makes sense, since they're almost guaranteed that when the ad plays, someone sits thru watching it.

 

I think the US Only should be put under cons.

But thanks for the review! Nicely done.

 

HotSpot Shield.

 

Yes, Jay probably lives in the US so he forgot or never knew that it was unavailable outside the US. But yes that's a con(for people not in the USA).

 

That's not really a con, just unfortunate.

Anyway, for me Hulu is a viable, convenient, and may I add, no cost solution to timeshifting and cumbersome tivo subscriptions.

In addition, it offers a simple and intuitive interface that's easy to navigate; and the commercials are about as unobtrusive as they can get.

As mentioned, the difference in highrez quality over normal resolution is undetectable, however, the standard resolution does offer adequate playback if not stellar.

 

Like some of the other recent articles, I have to ask - what does this have to do with laptops/notebooks?

Regarding Hulu, it's free, got some good shows, so I'm not gonna complain . And yeah I didn't even know it wasn't available in other countries until I tried to access it from one last summer, but understandable unless they later add international targeted ads.

 

Hulu Desktop works perfectly with my 1.4GHz SU9400, so what C2D are they talking about?

 

Because it's marketed specifically to laptop users

 

Would be so awesome we outside of USA could get Hulu or a similar service.
I would even consider paying a monthly subscription. xD

 

Hulu is a great service and a lot less intrusive than regular TV with all it's annoying physiological dysfunctions and pharmaceutical commercial. They ever give you a choice of (1 of 2) commercials. (which is good since it won't let you continue without watching them.)

I just wish they allowed you to download the show for later offline viewing.

Speaking of Hulu, I think I'll click on Monk right now!

 

Subscribe to a virtual hosting provider in the US and use it as a proxy. linode.com is pretty cheap.

 

There are a few tools out there that will download from hulu... rtmpdump still works great.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if later on they go global if they make the money. This looks like it has some good potential.

 

Well they're not doing a good job, I'm a heavy laptop user (and desktop, back and forth depending on what tasks I'm working on) but I've never once seen any advertisement or indication at all of this.

Even so I still think it's silly to review a video playback website on a laptop review site. At least to make it somewhat fitting I think it should have included laptop-specific content like maybe battery consumption comparisons per hour of playback, etc.

Not that there's anything wrong with the review of course! It's a good review, and I definitely like hulu.

 

Then you must have been living under a rock? Even though I first came to know about this website through a review in PC World magazine, I didn't realize it's full value until I saw the television commercials:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m71m-LBqFQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-jfrjXrOyc&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYjnVE6ZXtU&NR=1

In that's true, it just makes you behind the times. Laptops have long since moved beyond just being highfalutin calculators; they are, and have also been entertainment tools. That makes this review is quite appropriate.

Then share your experiences with it. I think that was the point.

 

Can somebody do a review for Google.com? It's one of the foremost search engines for laptops today! (Available worldwide)

 

I just watched those again, and you're right, they do seem to be marketing it for laptops. Funny that I've seen all those ads but never remembered the "for laptops" aspects...

Lol, for some reason I see you picturing me saying "These new-fangled laptops and their 'entertainment'. Back in my day.." Being a video game developer (lead 3D engine programmer), I would at least hope I'm not "behind the times"

Anyway, to your pointing out that laptops are for more than work now (duh), what I meant was that I thought NBR was for reviewing the hardware aspect of laptops, and to a limited extent the software when it involves pre-installed OS'es, drivers, etc.

When you get to generic software and websites, to say the least, it could at least be put into a sub-category.

Think of it from this point of view - when people come to this site frequently, they come when they're interested in purchasing a laptop/notebook (big surprise!), and as a result want to see reviews of laptops/notebooks, not hulu/yahoo/gmail/whatever.

But just to be clear again, I'm not criticizing the reviews themselves, just curious about this recent choice of articles.