by Robert Abby

Created on: November 08, 2010

Life without Cable TV seems to be more and more appealing to a broader genre of people today.  Few middle to low-income households have the stomach to shovel out hundreds each month to inflated Cable Companies with sub-par service and crappy customer support.  Considering the average American will pay around $75.00 for their basic cable service, and many others upwards of $200 with movie and sports packages, it's time to reassess just how valuable our media is to us.

 Enter Hulu Plus, the television solution we may have been waiting for to sweep us off our feet.  For a measly $9.99 a month, you get full reign of the Hulu catalog of television and movie options.  Hulu Plus is offered on your PC, or streamable to your internet ready TV's, Playstation 3, and Internet Ready BluRay Players.  Just head on over to Hulu.com/plus, and sign up, its that easy!  Now before you call Comcast and tell them to piss off like you have always wanted, you may want to hold out for just a bit, because there are a few things that Hulu Plus may need to work out before it becomes a full on replacement for Cable at all.

♦ Movies

First and foremost, as many of you may know, the movie selection on Hulu is complete crap.  Most of the movies they offer, they should pay you to watch, but that's besides the point.  If they expect to retain their viewers for the months or years to come, this category needs to catch up with Netflix, or at least have some type of On Demand with some free movies and maybe some digital renting or downloading.  Whatever it takes to add some worth-while movies to the pitiful selection available.

♦ Commercials

It's hard to understand how Hulu charges $2.00 more a month than Netflix, yet Hulu will still insert commercials into it's programming.  Sure, Hulu seems to have some larger accounts to pay out to, what with both ABC and FOX on board (or maybe they are just plain greedy), but it is still a bit to swallow.  At least the commercial breaks are only about 30 seconds to 1 minute at a time, and inserted at the pre-existing 'commercial-spots' in most episodes, so it almost makes it feel like 'authentic TV' in a way.

♦ Interface

Sure the system is brand new, but the user interface could really use some tweaking, especially on the Sony Bravia.  The PS3 version is released next week, so we can only hope its not as cumbersome to navigate.  Things just seem to be hidden, not wanting to be discovered.

Aside from these three critiques with the initial release of Hulu Plus, if you are looking to save anywhere from $50 - $150 dollars a month, and still have some reputable viewing sources, Hulu Plus may be the option for you.  Especially when you pair up Hulu Plus and Netflix Streaming together, you will have literally endless choices of viewing pleasure.  And at roughly $20.00 bucks a month, you cant beat it.  If you think about it, you could go out and buy an internet ready Sony Google TV for starting at $600, and it would practically pay itself off in savings in no time.

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