First impressions: Hulu Plus

Hulu is finally expanding beyond your PC’s monitor, but if you want to take advantage of the service, it’s going to cost you. For the past week, we’ve been running Hulu Plus, the site’s subscription service, through its paces as it ramps up for a broad launch. And we’ve come to a few preliminary conclusions.  

We say preliminary since this is a service that’s still in beta – and there’s still time to improve some of the bugs. On the whole, though, Hulu Plus is a content-packed service that gets a lot of things right. And its portability, especially via the iPad, is a welcome and long overdue feature that might be enough to get some people to pony up the $10 monthly charge. It’s far from perfect, though, and there are a few stumbling blocks that could keep others sitting on the fence even after Hulu opens the service up to everyone.

The quality of the broadcasts is generally superb, streaming at 720p – versus the 480p for the free version of Hulu. It looks spectacular on the iPhone and iPad, oftentimes better than Netflix’s app. Newer shows stream in letterbox format, while catalog (non-HD) programming fills the screen.

There are occasional head scratchers, though. Select programs, for example, only occupy a small percentage of the screen. (NBC’s “Life” came through in a minimized version even though the show aired in HD.) And there are occasional moments when programs would burst into fast forward when we tried to pause them.

The scrub bar, letting you fast forward and rewind, works well on the iPad – but the pause button is a bit awkwardly placed. Many users have been spoiled on the iPhone and iPad by being able to tap the center of a video to pause and play, whereas with Hulu Plus, it’s a small button in the bottom left corner of the screen. Granted, it’s a small re-education, but it’s one that causes more angst than it should.

The sign-in process to Hulu Plus is simple and fast. And the expanded content library is deep – though after a week, you’ll start to notice the holes. Select shows only have a limited number of episodes, while others have the complete series. There are some quality older, cancelled series available, but you’ll inevitably be left wishing for another that’s not available. And the continuing absence of most CBS programming is frustrating – though that’s certainly out of Hulu’s immediate control.