And it is not on cable, or satellite, or broadcast. It is on the net. In honor of Hulu’s first birthday, I wanted to share the very positive experience I’ve had over the last week, and why I think Hulu has some real potential.

It was just a few weeks ago that I finally started using Hulu, and instantly I liked the interface, video quality, and selection. Finding new shows is always fun, and catching up on missed episodes of favorites is always nice. On my MacBook Pro, I’m quite happy with the picture quality, even in full screen mode. For me though, I just wasn’t using it much. I tend to watch TV and movies rather passively, for the most part, while catching up on my feeds in Google Reader or skimming FriendFeed, so watching shows on the computer just doesn’t appeal to me. But a week ago, that all changed. A week ago, I got an alpha invite for Boxee. After following instructions linked to from The Unofficial Apple Weblog I had Boxee running on my AppleTV in about 10 minutes. And that’s when everything changed.

First, Boxee is working really well for me – better than an average beta – and the real winner is now I can watch Hulu on my home theatre. This makes Comcast OnDemand look like my modest book collection compared to the San Francisco Public Library. In the last week, the cable box has been on only a few times, for specific shows. On the big screen, the video quality isn’t perfect, but not too shabby at all. BTW, I love my AppleTV, and buy way too much from iTunes Store, where the quality is excellent and there are no commercials (and I can bring things with me on my iPhone), but I still think Hulu + Boxee is pretty cool, and lets me watch things I probably wouldn’t pay for.

So, why do I think Hulu is so great and can be successful? A few key ideas:

• Content is king – Hulu has pretty solid library of content, and it keeps growing. There is also a great variety, so it is not single purpose.
• Fresh content – related, much of the content isn’t very old (a few days or weeks), so it is easy to catch that Daily Show that you missed, or last week’s episode of whatever the kids are watching today.
• Immediacy – damn, it’s fast. Hit play, just a few seconds and the video starts. No waiting for downloads, and I have only experienced a few very short hiccups in playback.
• The advertising doesn’t suck – OK, most everyone sort of hates advertising, but Hulu has scored with their adverts. First, there is a little counter telling you how long till the advert is over – 15 to 30 seconds, so you know how long to wait. Second, the commercials are short, and since you can pause the show, there is no reason to jump up to hit the loo or kitchen during the commercial – greatly increases the chances of actually watching and remembering them.

So, congratulations Hulu, you guys have solved a lot of problems with delivering ‘mainstream’ video content over the internet. With Boxee, it’s the perfect solution for me, and I think just the beginning of delivering more and more video content to the living room TV.