Hulu Plus is a Big Minus

First things first: what is hulu? For I first heard Will Shatner promote the website in commercials. I use it so I can watch my favorite TV shows whenever I want. They’re all in one place. It’s free. Because it’s free, you endure some commercials – but a fraction to what they are when watching normal TV. Not too bad. You get to see what you want to see when you want to see it. The three main draw backs:
1. Commercials – there are less of them, but they still exist
2. No CBS shows – not sure why, so I no longer follow CBS shows – there’s plenty other stuff
3. Shows expire – for some reason only about 4 or 5 shows are available, so don’t wait too long

I wasn’t sure what I exactly thought Hulu Plus was – they kept that part a bit ambiguous when they were pushing it. From the name, here was what I was expecting:
1. No commercials – you are paying a monthly fee now so you’d figure you’d get to lose those pesky interruptions.
2. Shows don’t expire – again, you are paying a monthly fee now so you should get the season from the start
3. More shows – maybe CBS shows are available to the paying customers or other gems not available to the general public watching the free site.

Turns out it’s the opposite! From what I can figure out, the Hulu Plus is referring to being able to stream the Hulu website on your TV directly. But that’s it. You now get to pay to watch shows interrupted by commercials. The shows still expire, no change there. And, believe it or not, not all the shows on hulu are available on hulu plus – you get fewer shows!

Friday night I was settling in for the night and decided to set up my subscription. I thought I had figured out the best system ever. For $43 I was able to have high-speed internet (wireless in the house), and could watch almost any movie I wanted to (netflix) and could still watch this seasons tv shos (hulu). This compared to my previous internet/cable combo which started off around $70 and had snuck up towards $100 and didn’t even include on demand or tivo.

I set up my subscription to Hulu Plus and started picking out my line-up. I started picking out tv shows directly on the tv but realized it was faster on the laptop in my lap so switched over. I threw in The Office and Community. I picked out some light watching like Royal Pains, Burn Notice, House and Bones – good for ironing. I even got to snag Masterpiece Mystery and the new Sherlock Holmes. Went on and found Scientific America and Nova and Alfred Hitchcock presents. I was on a roll – this was going to be such an awesome line-up. I switch my attention to the tv to get the first show rolling. But wait, it doesn’t seem to be syncing. Many of my new subscriptions to the various shows aren’t showing up on the TV list. Very strange since I was thoroughly spooked when I set up the initial Hulu subscription – it’s a combo of doing it on the Roku/TV and on the computer. I was just finishing with my contact info on my laptop and I look up while the computer screen is processing the info and notice that the TV just activated – within split seconds! Eerie fast and they’re talking to each other without me.

That’s when I start to realize that Hulu Plus isn’t really all it cracks up to be. Some digging later and I find it’s seriously limited. And most of the shows I want to watch aren’t available for my TV. How can that be? It makes no sense. So I’ll be canceling my free one- week subscription and watching commercial free shows on Netflix. They may not be this season but there is so much to watch on there it should last me however long it takes for the Hulu people to figure out how to fix this mess. In the meantime they should really rename their product – talk about misrepresentation. It should be Hulu Streaming or Hulu TV. It definitely isn’t a Plus.