Hulu Plus Gets An A+: Hands On Review

Over the past few hours I've been testing Hulu's new Plus service and as aside from a few quirky issues with the player, the service is quite good. I've been using it on my MacBook, iPad and iPhone and the quality of the videos are excellent across all three devices. Hulu's 720p streams look just as good as Netflix's and of all three Apple devices, the size of the iPad screen naturally makes Hulu's videos look best on the iPad.

So far I have not seen any quality issues with the video and buffering is extremely low. As it should be, the quality of video with the Plus service is quite an improvement over the 480p content on Hulu.com. As a test, I found a clip from Scoundrels which starts off with a shot of a bunch of spinning windmills in the desert and there was no pixelation at all. Clearly Hulu got the encoding down right as things like spinning windmills and running water in shots tend to show pixelation very easily if not encoded properly. Even taking the video out of my MacBook and in to a 50" Vizio TV, the quality is very good.

The registration process to sign up for Hulu Plus is super simple and only requires your basic contact details and credit card info on one page and currently Hulu only accepts MasterCard and Visa. With the way Hulu displays all of the video preview windows, it could be very difficult to figure out which content is free and which requires a subscription. To address this issue, Hulu places a green plus icon next to any content that's available only with the subscription service.

While I didn't see any major problems with the service, there were a few quirks I came across in the player. When I changed my video player settings from auto-select to 720p as default, the video would stop and not start back up again. Clicking the update button would update my settings, but also require me to have to refresh the page and watch the ad all over again. I'm assuming this is an issue that Hulu will get fixed or that it could potentially be an issue on my side based on the version of my browser, player etc. I'll update the post when I hear back from Hulu on this. I've also reached out to Hulu to see if they will disclose some of their video encoding settings. I've also had an issue where the player delivers me the same ad twice, before it plays the video, but I don't think this is a widespread issue as it didn't do this all the time.

Whether or not Hulu Plus has enough content to make it worth paying for is something everyone is going to have their own opinion on. But from a technical and quality perspective, Hulu Plus offers exactly what one would expect it should for ten dollars a month.

Note: I didn't have time to capture video of Hulu Plus in action on my Apple devices but I'll try to update this post later with some videos.

Comments

[DS]

This certainly could be turning point, if you use Netflix + Hulu + ESPN3 and a fair amount of content is covered.

[Jeffrey A. Haines]

Pixelation? Don't you mean compression artifacting?

I'm glad to read this positive review of their service. It seems like Hulu took their time to ensure the quality of the entire service--including the signup process, the interface, and the video encoding.

[David H. Deans]

Dan, do you have any insight on *where* the Hulu Plus service will be made available?

I'm assuming only in the U.S. market, due to content licensing issues, but don't want to assume anything.

Given the limited available content, the service as-is likely lacks mainstream appeal with informed American consumers. However, viewers outside the U.S. may ironically be more interested in this offering, even with the advertising handicap.

[Dan Rayburn]

Hi David, when it launches, Hulu Plus will only be available in the U.S.

I have read Hulu say that they want to expand the service over time to more location and on more devices, but I don't have and have not seen any specific details from them on other geographic locations or the time frame for that.

[joeprince]

No, I prefer ipad. I love my iPad. It has almost completely replaced my personal computer. For the things I do... Is is perfect! Much nicer than any CPU I have ever owned. All my other computers would do a lot of things I would never use it for, and do it painfully in the process (slow, buggy, etc.). When you get down to what you do most on you personal computer... the iPad does almost all of the things an average user needs, and with a much much nicer U/I. Easy of use, fast, and efficient. The other computer manufacturers could learn a thing or two from this, but even if they do... they will probably screw-up the one they come out with by adding all the crap back in again. Ugggggg!!!!

I am sticking with my iPad. I think other will do the same once they try it and realize it is the perfect personal computer :-)

[Jon]

Just spent (wasted is more like it) 4 hours reviewing the new Hulu Plus and my overall impression - IT SUCKS BAD. Too many commercials, poor commercials at that, and ps poor audio to boot. Wife's comment - I want my money back. Don't think that this service will make it. Sort of like broadcast TV but much worse since there is a payment. Movies are interrupted, however briefly, with the most asinine, vacuous and just plain stupid commercials I wish I had never seen, over and over. Don't waste your money, folks.

[Not a Hulu Friend]

Totally agree with Jon. The service is disappointing. For $10 I'd expect not to have to deal with the ads, the limited availability of shows on the PS3, sloppy support for captioning.

Most of the content I was interested in is marked as Web Only. That means that it cannot be watched on the PS3 (or mobile), which is the whole reason for paying the extra money in the first place. Did these guys not make enough money already on shows from the 60's and 70's that they would let people paying $10 see the shows on their TVs?? That is not clear when searching for the shows either. I just realized that when I could not find 90% of my queue on the PS3.

As for the touted big selection, lots of series just have a few episodes of a limited number of seasons. Not even close to what I expected. So even if ther web only restrictions were lifted, this would be far from the web archive I envisioned.

I have a somewhat non-mainstream additional requirement - I need shows to be captioned/subtitled. While the technology is there for doing that, which is nice (Netflix just now is starting to get their act together around this), just few shows are captioned. I don't see a reason other than sloppiness for that - all these shows do have captions already. Why not turn them on???

I feel like I just burned (or been robbed of) $10. Not good.