Get this, my crappy old TV suddenly burned out a few days ago. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me because I worked that thing to death. If you know me you’ll know I’m pretty much addicted to all the tube has to offer. To be honest, it feels kind of weird not having that thing humming in the background and flickering at night while I sleep, but maybe this is a gift in disguise since I really need to be focused right now.
So over the weekend, knowing I’ve been having the television blues, my hero, Rob Stein, sent me a precious Hulu invite. He had mentioned Hulu earlier and I was interested to give it a go.
Turns out this was the perfect cure because they have quite a bit of content as far as TV shows go. I watched a bit of Conan, an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, and then an episode of Lost In Space. The video player interface is really responsive and easy to use and understand. The site is simple and easy to navigate as well. Check out the screenshot above. The controls and buttons are nicely tucked away, then revealed when expected on hovering with your mouse. The “lower lights” button is a nice touch. None of the buttons in and surrounding the video player take you away from the page, meaning you don’t lose your place in your show while clicking on them. The video simply pauses and shifts to the upper corner while you access options. The full screen view looks pretty damn good too. I’m a huge fan. I realize streaming video is nothing new, but what sets them apart is the large archive of content, fresh content, and the fact it’s not confusing at all. The video streamed extremely well for me over my crummy DSL wireless connection.
One other impressive feature I found was I had paused the show and let my computer go to sleep. I came back to the site and had to refresh and navigate back to the movie. To my surprise Hulu remembered where I left off and started the show right where I had left it. The commercials in the shows are pretty painless I must say.
They’ve include a lot of bells and whistles we’re all familar with and managed to incorporate the embed code feature to keep us bloggers happy similar to what you’d find at YouTube. Check out the Hulu embedded video player example below:
Currently Hulu is in private beta, but if your itching to check it out leave me a comment and I’ll see how many invites I’m able to dish out.
