Hulu, the premium YouTube

These days, there are hundreds of ways to watch videos online. From YouTube to iTunes to FloTV on your cell phone, the internet has opened up the doors to a video free for all. While there are millions of videos available online, sometimes it can be hard to weed out the crap from the good stuff. Sites like YouTube are polluted with poor quality user-submitted videos or catch-them-while-they-last clips from your favorite TV shows, which are often pulled from the site for copyright infringement before you can even copy the embed code to your blog.

That’s where Hulu.com comes in.

30 Rock is available on Hulu.comThis streaming video site, co-owned by NBC Universal and News Corp., offers high-quality content from hundreds of your favorite movies and TV shows and you never have to spend a penny because the site is supported through 30-second ads that run during the video. Hulu’s CEO Jason Keller explained in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview that Hulu’s focus is on premium content saying, ‘The resolution and size of the video are things that put Hulu in a very different class of service than YouTube.”

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is one of the great shows on Hulu.comCertainly, Hulu offers superior quality video to YouTube, with a full-screen mode that doesn’t look pixelated or choppy. It also offers quality content and eliminates the task of wading through poor production value user uploads to try to find a decent clip.

Best of all, Hulu doesn’t just bring you a bunch of clips, you can watch full episodes of shows like 30 Rock or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and enjoy full-length movies. Titles available include Some Like it Hot, Sideways, Requiem for a Dream, and The Big Lebowski to name a few. The site has about 250 shows and 100 movies with plans to add more as they work out deals with other networks and studios.

FX series The Riches is available on Hulu.comWhile the movie aspect is appealing, it’s the TV section that’s really useful. Hulu is like a universal TiVo and you can catch up on episodes or entire seasons of some really great shows without paying a dime. Can’t remember what’s been happening with the Malloy family, the gang of con artists on The Riches? Well, Hulu has all 13 episodes of the first season available at the click of a mouse. It takes all the stress out of trying to pick what to squeeze into your TiVo Season Pass list because you’ve always got Hulu as your TV safety net.

It’s doubtful that Hulu will replace regular TV anytime soon; the experience of watching something on a little laptop screen just doesn’t compare to watching it on a brand new plasma TV, but it could become another channel, so to speak, for video content.

Alexis Gentry

Alexis Gentry is the creator and editor of Trashwire.com. She has been called a “dynamic, talented and unique voice in pop culture” by Ben Lyons of E! and, with her strong fascination with entertainment and penchant for writing, it’s not hard to see why.

6 Responses

  1. Hilldog says:

    Thanks for this info! I miss a bunch of great TV shows because I have the cheap TiVo and it fills up quick. Love that trashwire can always keep me informed on ways to increase my viewing pleasure.
    I miss “Always Sunny” and can’t wait for it’s return!

  2. Dean says:

    I like Hulu too. If you are going to stay in for lunch during work, its a great way to catch up on current shows or past favorites like News Radio. I find it interesting that you said NBC is part owner of it because there is a lot Fox shows on their as well. Is Fox also part of the partnership?

  3. Dean says:

    Hilldog,
    If you are adventurous and know your way around a computer, go out and buy yourself a 200/300/500GB hard drive and upgrade it yourself. The cost of the hard drive is less than hundred dollars (500GB ~ $100) and that is definitely cheaper than getting a tivo with more hours on it. Tivocommunity.com has a lot of great tutorials on how to do it. I upgraded my 40hr series 2 to a 300hr (so I put in a 300GB hard drive) one. I don’t know if it will work for the new hd tivos (series 3) but I would imagine tivocommunity would probably know.

  4. Alexis Gentry says:

    Dean,

    Actually, I believe Fox is a part owner of the site and they also have several members on Hulu’s board of directors. I think the only major hold outs on content are ABC and CBS and (I think) it’s because they have deals with Apple…. but keep in mind, this is like what I can remember of a summary of stuff I read when researching Hulu, so I could be totally wrong.

    -Alexis

  5. ManBearPig says:

    its good that theres a legal place to watch tv on the net

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