Choose And Watch TV

Hulu is really something else. Unlike all other television sites, Hulu is actually a legal and reliable way to watch television shows. It won the 2007 Webby awards as most innovative website and continues to be one of the driving tv show websites. It's pretty much the only site that allows legal streaming of popular television shows and movies. Unfortunately it's only available to US residing citizens, so if you don't live in the USA you're plain out of luck. There are ways to get around it, but most require special proxy software which are not considered reliable and are not always safe and fool proof.

But for those that do live in the US, Hulu makes catching up on missed television shows a breeze. Hulu has contracts with almost all of the major 4 television channels like NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS. You can watch many of the television shows that have aired on these channels days after they have aired and in really high quality too! They support fullscreen and this entire thing is funded by ads that are strategically placed in the beginning and ending of the shows, and oddly do not really disrupt your watching. The ads are short, lasting no longer then 15 seconds and are actually far more bearable then the 2+ minutes of advertising normally seen during real commercial breaks.

They also have some older films, but most are from 10 or more years ago, but still there's some pretty watchable stuff there. The real problem with Hulu, besides it being restricted to only those in the US, is that you can't save or stream the episodes. The episodes load as they are played, and you won't really notice any problems with that but you can't connect to the Internet - load the video and then disconnect from the Internet as some do. Because of security and anti-piracy methods, you have to be connected to the Internet at all times to watch the episode - which isn't really a problem for most, but for those that like to load the videos beforehand - you should know it won't be possible with Hulu. That's not much of a problem.

Hulu also lets you embed videos on to your site so others can watch. The only thing about Hulu is that it requires registration to watch the episodes and movies, unless of course you watch it through embedded videos on site like OpenHulu. Registration is free so it's not really all that annoying.

The Overall Ratings for Project Free TV:
Show Diversity: (4/5)
Based on the mixture of television shows available on the site.
Loading Speed: (4/5)
The time taken to navigate the site and load videos.
Ease of Navigation: (4/5)
How easy is it to use and navigate.
Advertisements: (1/5) (Commercial Breaks embedded in Episodes)
Based on the annoyance level of advertisements on this site, the amount of ads, and the volatility of ads appearing on the page.
The lower the rating, the less annoying the ads are.

Total Score: 17/20

Hulu is one of the best places to watch television shows if you live in the US. They have plans to make it possible to watch their shows in other countries, but right now that isn't available yet. The fact that you can embed the videos on to any site and the safety of using the site since it's completely legal make it all the more inviting. Hulu is definitely a site you should have in your radar and is one of those sites that those in the US can really count on to catch up on shows that the site supports. With popular shows like Family Guy, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Scrubs and Prison Break under it's wing, it's obvious why Hulu is a smashing success and deserving of one of the highest ratings we can give it.

Labels: movies, tv links