Roopesh's Blog » HD

Update: Hulu

Roopesh Sheth — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:49:17 +0000

Remember my first take on Hulu? I wasn’t impressed by the video quality.

Sure, it’s encoded at 640×360. Here’s a screenshot of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 Episode 8:

(Click image for full size)

Now let’s compare that with a 720p rip that I found on The Pirate Bay (Sorry, Eric, comparisons gotta come from somewhere):

(Click image for full size)

Now imagine trying to watch these on modern monitor or TV. Clearly, the first one is going to be tiny on its own and crappy when blown up to full screen.

On the other hand, the 720p rip is fantastic – we felt like we were watching it live off the cable feed on our 46″ 1080p LCD TV.

Bottom line? Give us better quality, Hulu, or realize that people will continue to find better quality elsewhere.

Note: I do not endorse any of the sites mentioned above, nor do I endorse pirating or sharing of files. Information above is for comparison purposes only.

Current Hulu Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I really appreciate the Hulu library breadth and depth. I look forward to better quality video and various output options.

Technorati Tags: Hulu, streaming video, TV

Initial Take: Hulu

Roopesh Sheth — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:39:36 +0000

I woke up this morning to find myself personally invited to the Hulu beta.

I tried to watch a couple of shows, but I have to admit that I’m incredibly underwhelmed by the video quality. The stream is maybe 320×240, and even at that its blocky.

When I tried full screen, it looked horrible.

The video selection is pretty good. I just can’t bring myself to watch any of the shows, the quality is so bad.

On top of it all, of course you’re relegated to watching the shows on your monitor. There’s no way (yet) to stream the shows to your TV.

For now, stick to joox and The Pirate Bay. At least you’ll get decent video quality.

Initial Hulu Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Technorati Tags: Hulu, streaming video, video on demand

Wow, HD DVD is dead. That was fast.

Roopesh Sheth — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 20:16:37 +0000

Well, I guess Sony won. Toshiba has thrown in the towel and Blu-Ray will reign as the champion of disc-based video for the next 10 years or so, until the next Ultra Hi-Def Super Duper Audio & Video Format comes along.

I’m not surprised by this turn of events. Remember, this is why I bought a PS3 recently. And from a general consumer perspective, this is a good thing. Now people can start investing in one format, and let loose on the HD movie offerings.

Still, it sucks (ok, it fucking blows) that Sony won. I mean, they’re still changing the format and older players (except the PS3) are going to be limited in what they can do with Blu-Ray discs. But somehow, this is the format that you all decided to support. What can I say?

Technorati Tags: Blu-Ray, HD, HD-DVD, Sony

Link: DirecTV vs. AT&T vs. DishTV (vs. Cable)

Roopesh Sheth — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:34:56 +0000

Some of you may know that I’ve been on the fence about switching from Time Warner Cable to DirecTV.

One of my factors for switching is the pure number of HD Channels on DirecTV. One channel in particular is only available on DirecTV, SciFi HD.

Anyways, I was thinking maybe Time Warner will get SciFi HD, maybe I’m jumping the gun. Then I found this article. Wow. Talk about no competition. Satellite easily is the HD leader.

So I’ll probably switch to DirecTV, barring some unforeseen complication or some really bad customer service.

Link

Technorati Tags: Cable, DirecTV, Dish, DishTV, Disk Network, HD