In Which I Briefly Describe a Web Site You Cannot Visit

I recently got my invitation to test out the beta version of Hulu, the "YouTube" killer put out by NewsCorp and NBC Universal. It's invite only, and I can't hand out invites, so unfortunately you either have to have gotten on the waiting list or have to wait for the public release if you want to go visit the site yourself. This is why you have me, to test this stuff out!

Hulu has plenty of on-air shows available for direct streaming from NBC and FOX properties, including House, Scrubs, Heroes, Bones, Monk, Arrested Development, Dragnet, Buffy, Remington Steele and more. They even have a movie or two up for viewing as well. Streaming works pretty well, with limited commercial interruptions modeled after ABC.com's player.

Most shows allow you to embed a full episode into a site. Here I embedded a full episode of USA's Psych. Since I'm logged in to Hulu, I don't know if this will load for you or not. But it loads for me, so I can watch TV on my blog. And if the blogger is happy, every one's happy.


Supposedly you can also custom clips by trimming the video in the embed menu, but whenever I tried to embed a section of the pilot for Mary Tyler Moore, it kept giving me the full episode.


Once Hulu goes private, you guys will like it. The video plays better than NBC.com's and the menu interface is a lot friendlier than FOX.com's. I would love to see ABC video added to here at some point in the future as well, including a backlog of Alias episodes, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. In case you miss an episode or forget to set your VCR or TiVo, Hulu will be a handy-dandy tool. Now the TV writer's just need to get paid for these streams!