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Hulu Private Beta Goes Live Tonight; Will YouTube Blink?

The bastard child of News Corp. and NBC's love-hate relationship with GooTube, Hulu, is making its public debut this week, with the private beta going live tonight. The log-in form's already up, but those of us at Giz who've signed up for the beta haven't gotten our invites in the mail yet, so we haven't stuck our foot in the front door. Hulu's YouTube-killing voodoo is supposed be the fact that it's going to be awash in full-length episodes of TV shows, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Pretender to Heroes, along with movies (The Breakfast Club!) and content from Sony, MGM and others, lojacked with "25 percent as much advertising as broadcast norms." NewTeeVee has a thorough rundown laying out most of what you'd want to know before sending your email address into the corporate mystery chute. [GigaOM]

3:40 PM on Mon Oct 29 2007
By Matt Buchanan
5,282 views
14 comments

Comments

Spyrojoe at 03:54 PM on 10/29/07
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I signed up for this a few months ago and completely forgot about it and how cool it could potentially be. Hope I get an invite.
yoshi at 04:06 PM on 10/29/07
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@Spyrojoe:

I agree. Looking more interesting by the minute.
Kaiser-Machead at 04:09 PM on 10/29/07
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If movies are shown with ads cutting along somewhere in-between, then it's total garbage. I'm sure it'll just have ads before and after the flick, which is fine, but during? No friggin' way. Now, TV shows, I won't care quite so much, since this is the norm for regular TV anyway (so long as it's not more than what television stuffs down my pupils).
reebs82 at 04:12 PM on 10/29/07
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i hate missing an episode of heroes because if you watch it on the player at NBC it freezes up all the time, i just hope this works better and it sounds like it will
AlexNC at 04:50 PM on 10/29/07
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any word on what resolution videos will be running at?
calebc at 04:54 PM on 10/29/07
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Can I watch it on my TV in full screen (16:9) without dragging my PC into the living room, or running a 40' cable through my house?
wbremner at 04:56 PM on 10/29/07
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@AlexNC: Agreed, this is the question. I am hooked on 1080 goodness, and Heroes is just so much better at this res.
ideaman2020 at 05:03 PM on 10/29/07
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Hmm.... let's see...

"25 percent as much advertising as broadcast norms" on my computer screen vs. "1 percent as much advertising as broadcast norms [via DVR & zipping through commercials]" on my television...

which will I choose....?
maloeh at 05:51 PM on 10/29/07
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This thing is completely useless if you live outside the US. Even to Canada which already gets US programming and commecials. *sigh* I thought I was going to have a new way to slack off at work, not that Giz doesn't cause enough lost productivity.
chigga at 06:07 PM on 10/29/07
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Joost 2??
godwhacker at 07:15 PM on 10/29/07
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@chigga: gotta hope its better than joost
keyjey at 07:25 PM on 10/29/07
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@reebs82: if you want you can also download them from tvfreeload.com
MapsRus at 09:09 PM on 10/29/07
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They're already starting to give out invites here: [www.laudontech.com]
coolrepublica at 12:08 AM on 10/30/07
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Time magazine has an embedded video from Hulu. You can see what the resolution looks like. It is not bad. Actually it is very good. It's an episode of the Simpson.
[time-blog.com]

And people who want to get an invite, I would recommend that you go to hulu.com and sign up. That www.laundontech.com seems like a way to get your email address.