Cinema Science

Apparently this is the reason why NBC stopped uploading their shows to iTunes. It is called Hulu, I just signed up to be part of the private beta and am awaiting my invitation. I read about this earlier today at Entertainment Weekly. Below is a clip from 30 Rock. It's a little wide for the Blog but I wanted to show the quality of the video, also the info from EW.

Welcome to Hulu.com, the reason why NBC/Universal pulled out of their deal with iTunes. This new video hub is owned by NBC/Universal and News Corp and offers content from those companies' outlets (Fox, FX, NBC, USA, Sci-Fi, etc.) Even though it's still in beta, while the tech-wizards work out the kinks, Hulu is what we call a game-changer for two reasons:

1) The quality is phenomenal. No more sketchy, viewed-through-gauze YouTube clips. While it's not quite HD, the image looks far better than the iTunes equivalent. (And it's a lot smoother than NBC.com's episode hub.)
2) You can embed the videos. Whole episodes. Near as I can tell, if you wanted to put the whole first season of 30 Rock (or Bionic Woman or Hill Street Blues) on your blog, you could. No charge, no repercussions. It reminds me of the moment when e-mail — which the veterans among us can remember was something you paid for — became free: suddenly, the information axis shifted.