The evolution of video on the Web from a curious experiment to a cornucopia of channels took another step Thursday as Hulu.com released a beta of a downloadable application that allows viewing its collection from the desktop.
Eric Feng, Hulu CTO, wrote on the company blog that Hulu Desktop enables users to “find and enjoy your favorite Hulu videos in a rich, full-screen computer window that you can control with your mouse or keyboard or any six-button PC or Mac remote control.”
‘Step Outside’ of Browser
Feng said the application is the result of a small engineering team asking themselves how to make it easier for users to “immerse themselves” in Hulu’s TV shows and movies. The answer, he said, was to create Hulu Desktop so users can “step outside of their browser.”
In a step toward TV-like viewing, users can control the video with Apple and Windows Media Center remotes.
A user can log in to Hulu Desktop and get access to personal history and preferences for such things as playback quality and closed captioning. However, profile details, privacy settings, and friends are not accessible from the Hulu Desktop app.
The minimum required setup for using the app are Flash 9 and an Intel Pentium Core Duo processor running at 1.8 GHz with Microsoft Windows XP or later. For a Mac, the processor needs to run at 2.4 GHz with Mac OS 10.4 or later. Both also need a two Mbps or greater Internet connection and two gigabytes of RAM.
‘TV-Like Experience’
James McQuivey, a vice president and principal analyst at industry research firm Forrester, said the new application “is an acknowledgment that, when watching TV shows, people ultimately want to have a TV-like experience, even if they watch on the PC.”
But, he added, the new app is “also a way for Hulu to subtly permit the…