Hulu Walkthrough: Screenshots and Notes
You may have read our take on the Hulu launch, and you can see parts of the service for yourself at partner sites like AOL Video (TWX) and Comcast’s Fancast (CMCSA).
However, since Hulu isn’t fulfilling all requests for beta invites, and is restricted to the U.S., much of the service is behind closed doors. For all you inquiring minds, I played around on the site in the 24 hours or so since getting my invite, took screenshots, and jotted down some notes.
The site registration form asks for quite a bit of personal information:
The content selection is not as big as we’d hoped, with only five episodes available of current shows and no archives for them. Not quite enough library to really get lost in:
Even off-the-air shows, which set Hulu apart from other offerings, have slim pickings:
When a preroll ad plays, the rest of the options disappear. Then, as the videos played, I saw a mix of banner and video ads for Cisco, esurance, AXE, Nissan, and Chevrolet, among others:
I liked that a stream resumed where I left off, even when I came back to the site later in the day:
It’s satisfying to embed the full-length movie The Breakfast Club, as I did in our video bar at the top of NewTeeVee, as well as here:
However, our favorite feature after an official Hulu demo — a simple slider-based editing tool for creating shareable chunks of movies and TV shows — didn’t seem as cool when we played with it ourselves. The interface is frustrating because it doesn’t give enough feedback to make clipping accurate:
Lastly, though I can’t really show this through a small screenshot, full-screen streaming was actually pretty pixelated, and choppy at times.
Anyone else out there playing with Hulu? What’s your take?
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Finally, confirmation of full screen. Liz, is the full screen feature better or worse than the networks websites?
Coffee With Ian on October 30th, 2007 at 4:10 am - Permalink
pixelation on the full screen might be because you were on a slow broadband connection, that is mostly what i experienced. at home nice quality, which dropped at starbucks
Om Malik on October 30th, 2007 at 7:35 am - Permalink
Ive only Played with the embeds but they seem pretty easy to viewbut Im hoping that Joost will become a browser plugin soon and cuts a deal with HULU or NBC/FOX very soon
OM and Liz could you work your usual magic and get a few invites for us NewTeeVee readers ……
Matt_ on October 30th, 2007 at 9:08 am - Permalink
The fullscreen functionality is pretty standard for the JW, Blip and YouTube players. Looks better than YouTube bitrate, though, certainly.
Jackson West on October 30th, 2007 at 11:02 am - Permalink
I would say the full screen quality seemed worse than the networks’ websites, but that might have just been my internet connection.
Liz Gannes on October 30th, 2007 at 11:59 am - Permalink
[...] Hulu Now The good folks over at BuzzFeed have pointed out a backdoor way to watch the new Hulu video service — even if you don’t have a beta [...]
A Sneaky Way to Watch Hulu Now « NewTeeVee on October 30th, 2007 at 3:57 pm - Permalink
[...] UK Broadcasters Unite for “Kangaroo” Three of the UK’s biggest broadcasters, BBC, C4 and ITV, are banding together to create an online on demand entertainment service. The joint service, which has been given the working title “Kangaroo,” will offer more than ten thousand hours of the three broadcasters’ current and past programming. Think of it as the UK’s answer to Hulu. [...]
UK Broadcasters Unite for “Kangaroo” « NewTeeVee on November 27th, 2007 at 9:35 am - Permalink
[...] vormt. (Momenteel nog in beta, maar een login kan binnen een dag worden aangevraagd, bekijk deze site voor meer [...]
Voorbij web 2.0 design: 3 tips - Frankwatching on February 4th, 2008 at 10:02 pm - Permalink
How can i register for HULU.com Website
pd on March 11th, 2008 at 1:14 pm - Permalink
Anyone know how I can get to watch stuff off Hulu from the UK?
Srin on March 27th, 2008 at 2:21 pm - Permalink