Hulu to Launch Public Service, Adds New Partners
Hulu takes the wraps off of its free video streaming service on March 12, when the service exits its five-month-long private beta phase and becomes accessible to all users. The site has attracted much attention since its introduction, and rightly so: As a joint venture from News Corp. and NBC Universal, the site is backed by some of the biggest content producers around. The latest additions include Warner Brothers, Lionsgate, the NBA, and NHL.
Support from marquee content producers is one of the primary things that sets Hulu apart from the crowd of streaming video competitors (including Joost). Content clearly drives the video market. We've seen this most recently with the Blu-ray Disc vs. HD DVD face-off; there, Blu-ray came out on top once Warner Brothers threw its weight behind the format. Warner's decision gave Blu-ray the support of more than 70 percent of Hollywood's studio content producers, which gave Blu-ray an insurmountable edge over its rival.
Extrapolate that example to Hulu. Hulu's strength is its depth of catalog titles of oldies but goodies (anyone up for some '80s nostalgia with The A-Team or Remington Steele? Excellent...). Need to catch up on The Simpsons season 19, Battlestar Galactica season 3, or canceled-before-its-time or Firefly? Covered. You can find content easily, too: Hulu has a clean, (mostly) consistent presentation that makes navigation a joy. Sure, the videos have some ads, but considering the price of entry (free), that's easy to forgive.
The site has an impressive selection and variety of titles--all big-ticket Hollywood. Many competing sites are littered with video of varying quality from lesser-known entities, which may provide just as much entertainment, only of a different nature than the scripted and reality Hollywood content, or big-game sports--all of which are found on Hulu).
Ultimately, a single on-demand repository for video remains the holy grail of entertainment enthusiasts. Hulu is clearly on its way towards fulfilling that goal; even if the video is simply related clip or interview content that lives on other sites, Hulu provides the index links.
For now, Hulu focuses solely on maximizing the standard-definition streaming experience with surprisingly good-looking video and the solid interface. Sadly, high-def isn't ready for prime-time just yet--the high-def gallery is mostly a clipfest, though the company says more high-def content will come in time.
My biggest gripe with Hulu, aside from the need for more content: The site lacks any means of archiving your favorite shows to your local hard disk--either as a temporary rental for off-line (read: airplane) viewing, or a more permanent digital purchase for your own personal digital library. To me, offline viewing--coupled with an expanding video library--would make Hulu unstoppable.
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Just love this whole 1980s retro scene at the moment. Hulu certainly helps me re-live those years. Hopefully Knight Rider 2008 will be picked up for the Fall (and they'll give the car and The Hoff more to do).
In the meantime I'm enjoying the awesome new, digitally remastered Airwolf soundtrack that they've just released called 'Airwolf Themes' which you can download off Apple iTunes Store, or from their official website where there are great teaser samples, http://www.airwolfthemes.com/ I think Hulu's Airwolf pheneomenon is just the tip of the iceberg and really just setting us all up for an Airwolf revival movie too.
Sounds great for those like myself that run a PVR (flat screen tv connected to a dedicated video/audio/tv server that also doubles as a tivo {2tb hard drive, dual 2.5ghz cpu's, full HD, 1gb ddr2 video mem, 2gb ddr2 system mem, 1ghz front side bus})