Hulu's Inovates Online Television

If you haven't tried Hulu, you are missing one of the greatest resources available on the web. Hulu is a website that hosts a library of television shows current and past. No longer are we bound to our chairs each week for fear of missing our favorite episodes. Now we can log onto Hulu and catch up on our favorite shows when we have the time.

With the new Hulu Desktop the whole process becomes even easier. Hulu Desktop allows you to log into your own Hulu account and subscribe to the shows you want to watch. As your shows become available they are placed in a que that you can watch at your leisure! If you have to stop watching a show part of the way through, you can exit the program and when you restart, the show will automatically begin playing where you left off.

The only problem is that some network and cable stations are taking their own time hopping on board. CBS, for one, is woefully behind adding their shows online. This has gotten a lot of flack from the growing segment of the viewing population who have turned to online sites like Hulu to watch their favorite shows. People are embracing the TV on demand concept in a big way even if some of the big names in broadcasting are choosing to avoid it.

With CBS, BBC America and a host of others now joining with Youtube, the hope is that soon they will move beyond just hosting clips and start posting complete episodes of their shows at Youtube. Time will only tell when this will happen but for now your best source still seems to be Hulu. Though most industry analysts agree, the longer some broadcasters refuse to post their shows online, the more difficult it will be for them to gain back what market share they lost. To many viewers choosing online instead of digital broadcast or cable outweighs the inconvenience of missing some of their favorite shows. Although I think most would agree, the sooner all the broadcasters get on board the better.

Also Hulu is free to use, each show still has commercials but they are usually only 30 seconds long and you only have to watch one per commercial break, compared to the usual two to three minutes of commercials broadcasters usually place.

Watch Hulu via your browser at http://www.hulu.com. You will want to register and start your own account because some of the shows with certain TV ratings will require one.

Download the newest version of the Hulu Desktop at http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop. You should check to make sure you meet the system requirements. The Hulu Desktop itself is very intuitive but if you get lost check out their online tutorial videos by clicking on the link to their Lab page.