I’ve mentioned before how Jen and I rely on Internets for our TV. These circumstance grew mostly out of financial considerations. Though, their is something liberating about “cutting the cable.” Regardless, TV has found its way back into our iives. Well, sort of. Earlier this week, I received an invite to hulu. hulu is a new video streaming site. It’s produced through a partnership between NBC/Universal and Fox, and it’s 100% legal. The site is operating under a private beta, and its performance is sketchy at times. But when it’s working, it’s very cool. Especially in full-screen mode. (Expect an in-depth review soon.) hulu’s technical aspects aside, what’s great about it is it’s allowed us to simply have “normal” TV for the first time since moving to California. For example, earlier tonight, we watched “The Simpsons” most recent “Treehouse Of Horrors” episode, the pilot episode of “Arrested Development,” an episode of “Kitchen Nightmares” and a special celebrity edition of “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?” (featuring Tony Hawk). Jen even sprawled out across the couch under a blanket while we watched the shows. It’s the first time she’s done that since we moved here. Now, I have plenty of criticisms to levy against the state of modern television, and I don’t want to return to our pre-move status of watching several hours of television a day. But television does provide a great way to just unplug for a little while, and disconnection is definitely something I’ve needed lately. Speaking of old habits, here’s a photo I took at the condo where we lived in Illinois:
I had four VCR’s, and recorded many (too many, probably) TV shows. (Photo also available through Flickr.)
If you happen to have on of them there Hulu invites, I wouldn’t mind one
I think Hulu would be a lot better than what I am able to receive through my bunny ears. I can only get 7 channels through it and I have to adjust it every time I want to get one of them. Sometimes when I adjust it I can get 3, then I have to adjust it again to get 3 more. There is snow, too. Really annoying.
Andy: Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like hulu gives invites to its users. The only way to get one is to sign up at the site. That’s what I did, and it took less than two weeks to get an invite. Go now and sign up!
Hey Shawno,
I finally gave Hulu a real workout last night. I wanted to watch some TV, but the men in my life were busy playing games. Luckily I remembered that I had TV on my computer! ;-D
I watched an episode of King of the Hill and 2 episodes of Scrubs. Neither of these had I seen before. The video was ok but the audio was amazingly clear.
Only drawback was that when the guys play online it seems to cause an occasional hiccup in the broadband. But not a real issue because all I had to do was click the “pop-out” button and it started right up again.
All in all, I’d say it’s a pretty good beta. One I’ll be using again.
Cheers!
[...] “The return of TV” [...]
I’ve been having issues with Hulu. The videos will start playing decently and then the video will stop but the audio will continue. When I click on pause it takes it forever for the video to pause. The commercials are extremely choppy which is strange because why would they be any different than any of the other videos? I’m still using it but it’s still annoying to use. I think it’s a great idea. I think I just need a faster Internet connection and computer! It would also be nice if my computer would put flash video in full screen on my television like it does for other video formats. A lot of the issues I’ve got aren’t Hulu’s problems but still makes it annoying, I want to use it more!
For the most part, hulu’s worked fine for us. We started watching an episode of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” last night, and the hulu player kept stalling. We gave up on that and watched an episode of “King Of The Hill” instead. No trouble there. The computer we use to watch hulu videos is connected to the ‘net wirelessly using a USB Wi-Fi card, and the machine only has USB 1.1. So, the connection is only like 11 Mb or something. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, it’s not that fast, but it still seems to work OK. Full screen works well, too.
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