Hulu invites are everywhere!

I got my hulu.com invite a couple of months ago and have been enjoying episodes of House. Hulu.com, if you don't know is soon to be the premier site for watching TV shows on the web. Hulu.com has lots and lots of shows that you can't find anywhere else. (It has current episodes of the Simpsons! Whoo Hoo!)

Until today, it was really hard to get a invite. This has all changed. You want an invite to hulu? You can find them at thise links.

GigaOm
TechCrunch
Mashable
ReadWriteWeb

NBC gets new player (s)

It looks like NBC has upgraded its 24|7 player and added download capabilities. We decided to catch up on Heroes since the season is now over and I thought I would check out NBC to see how the viewing experience was. My loyal readers will know that usually Heroes is watched via Netflix Watch Instantly, but this time I decided to try the NBC 24|7 site. Well, the NBC site has changed and the streaming video quality is really great! It also seems that it streams better on our slow-ass DSL connection, so that was really nice. However, we did still have problems viewing it, as it would pause and then jump back to the beginning, which was very annoying.

I also checked out the new download service. You can download specific shows to your computer and then play them back on the special NBC player. The shows only play on the NBC player and they obviously have DRM built in. I tried to convert the file into something I could watch on my Sansa, but no luck. Also, I never did see the show I downloaded, as it only sticks around for 48 hours and I was not quick enough and now the show is gone. Now I see why everyone hates DRM.

In conclusion, NBC 24|7 is better, but it still sucks and the download service just pisses me off. Hey, at least it is progress. I am sure they will get it right soon.

Heroes posts later on Netflix

Heroes is a show that I like, but the NBC 24|7 player pauses on me and makes it hard to watch. I have discovered that Heroes also plays on Netflix "Watch Instantly", so I am back to watching it. I noticed yesterday that Heroes does not post to Netflix on Tuesday like it does on the 24|7 NBC site, but sometime on Wednesday. What time on Wednesday, I don't know, but I know that it is posted now, so I just might have to watch it now and catch up on this week's episode.

Heroes

Ok, I think I need to change this blog’s format. All that linking is a pain in the neck, so instead of not talking about internet TV and just linking to what I watched, I am going to switch it up. I am going to talk more about what I watched and do less linking. Maybe that will make it easier to post.

So, with that said, let’s talk about a show I was finally able to watch.

Heroes!

As I reported a couple of posts ago, I was having trouble watching Heroes on the official NBC site. Basically, I have a slow connection and it seems that the NBC player does not stream enough into its queue to prevent it from pausing. It was very annoying! For every 5 seconds of video, it would pause for 1 second. Totally frustrating and we clicked it off after less than five minutes.

So, what is a Heroes fan to do?

Watch the show on Netflix of course! Yes, Netflix “Watch Instantly” has THIS season of Heroes for your streaming pleasure. This is really great, considering that if you want to watch the DVD of season two, you have to wait for it to come out.

I am now caught up on Heroes. Yep, I watched all three episodes on Netflix this weekend. Boy, that is a good show and it looks like this season will be great. Watching Heroes on Netflix is even better because there are NO commercials. On the official NBC site, Heroes has short commercials, so it is better than the broadcast version. Watching Heroes on Netflix is even better than that, as no commercials are better than the 30 second ones they add to the streaming site.